PRIYA RAJSEKAR recounts her experience of queueing to renew her residency status at the Garda National Immigration Bureau.
It is nearly four in the afternoon. As I wait at the stop near my home for the bus to the Garda National Immigration Bureau, I recheck my bag to make sure I have taken all necessary documentation for the periodic registration mandated for non-EEA nationals. I look up from my bag to see a familiar face walking by, halfsmile in place for all of us who might recognise her. She is dressed like a person of considerable importance. A woman rushes to catch up with her – “Jo,” she calls out. I spend the next 10 minutes racking my brains trying to place her before she walks past again with her little group, this time with a photographer in tow. She stands with her group beside the main signpost of the estate and the photographer clicks away.
At that, the bus arrives and I am on my way, mildly annoyed at being pulled away from this live entertainment. As I hand in my change, I hope my wait at the GNIB won’t be the six or seven hours I am told it takes these days since the fingerprinting routine has been introduced. As I take my seat, I drag my thoughts back to other things.
Before long I’ve arrived at the GNIB building on Burgh Quay. I look around for a moment, trying to find my bearings, when a man in uniform walks up to me and asks what I’m there for. “GNIB registration,” I say, and he directs me to the queue for a numbered ticket, after which I will wait for my turn with the GNIB staff.
I queue for half an hour just to get my ticket. A man who has been straying from the queue is chastised by the ‘queue manager’. “If you can’t obey our rules, you can leave,” he says sternly, and the man returns to his position, a sheepish grin in place. Finally I reach the counter, only for the official behind the glass to inform me that my spouse on whom I am dependent needs to be there as well, to make sure the ‘marriage’ claim in my documentation is legitimate. I am advised of a twohour waiting time.
I take a seat and pull out the application form. A little boy toddles up to me, eager to look at my papers; his mother rushes after him, making sure he is not in anyone’s way. I smile at him and smile knowingly at the mother – I know just how difficult it can be for a parent with little children to spend an indefinite length of time in a strange, crowded place.
I check the digital ticket counter on the wall; the number has moved reasonably well, 20 tickets or so in an hour. I am another 60 away. I pull out a not-so-current novel to pass the time – The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, a Booker Prize winner.
A little baby wails uncontrollably as her mother walks the aisle, her face drawn with fatigue, apparently having spent several hours in the office. I take in the sights and sounds around me – strange dialects, cranky children, fussing parents, chattering couples, humming mobiles and the microphone calling out to applicants.
Some time passes, and numbers are moving very slowly now. Only three or four of the 14 or so counters are in operation. Nurses, doctors, accountants, software professionals – they are all here going through the drill, their time not their own for the duration of the GNIB visit. Nearly 400 tickets have been handed out today – which makes it about 2,400 a week. I do a quick sum of the money and the time involved.
Another half-hour crawls by. Things grow quieter, more resigned – the energetic toddler having finally managed to fall asleep, as has a very upset baby barely a few months old.
My husband has joined me in the meantime. We check the clock to see it’s almost 9.30pm. A GNIB staff member goes around asking people who are yet to be seen even once to put up their hands. At least 20 hands go up, and an anxious look crosses her face. More counters suddenly open and things begin to move more rapidly, the staff eager to finish up by the 10pm closing time.
At last, it’s my turn. The man at the desk takes a look at our GNIB cards, and then at me and my husband in turn. After a few minutes scrutinising our documents, he points to the fingerprinting machine – a rectangular contraption with a red light on which you place your index fingers, left one first. I oblige, having mentally prepared myself for this over the past several days.
“Rub your finger against your forehead please,” the staff member requests. I look at him half amused, half bewildered, not sure I heard him correctly. He repeats the request. “It seems to work for some reason,” he says, trying to control his mirth. The three of us laugh uncontrollably – embarrassment writ large on our faces. I oblige him again.
The photographing comes next. I try to keep my expression neutral. What next, I wonder – a uniform? We return to our seats in the waiting areas, and as I wait for the microphone to call out my name, I show my husband a paragraph from my novel: “Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything they’ve known for a great unknown beyond the horizon? Why climb this Mount Everest of formalities that makes you feel like a beggar? Why enter this jungle of foreignness where everything is new, strange and difficult?
“The answer is the same the world over; people move in the hope of a better life.” Much later, we return home – new card in hand, a little poorer in terms of dignity and with €150 less in my pocket.
The next day, as I go out to apply for my multiple entry visa (€100 for a year, this time), another familiar face walks past my car casually, hair slightly ruffled by the breeze. Not much brain-racking this time. It is the Minister for Integration himself, perhaps returning to his office. I suppress the urge to jump out of my car and tell him about my woes.
Hours later, I am lying in bed half asleep, recent happenings occupying my dreams. My thoughts drift back to that familiar face I saw at the bus stop. ‘Jill? Joe Burton? Joan? Yes, Joan Burton!’ I tell myself triumphantly before sleep finally overwhelms.
