How to obtain a Criminal Record Check/CRC from An Gardai Síochána/the Irish Police service

If you're an Irish pilot or a pilot who has lived in Ireland for any length of time you will no doubt have gone through the laborious and time consuming process to obtain a Criminal Record Check (CRC) or Police Certificate or background check that is officially unavailable but as with most things in the Emerald Isle; totally available if you jump through endless hoops. For the purposes of this How-To I’ll refer to the document you want as a CRC. The Gardai do provide a Vetting Disclosure but that’s not the one you want.

So this is a step by step guide on how to get one. I also provide redacted copies of what the forms and documents look like. This probably applies to cabin crew as well I guess; I'm not a cabin crew.

There are two broad routes you will be taking to get a CRC. Either you are A) a pilot living and flying in Ireland out of an Irish airport or B) you are living and flying abroad and need a CRC for your time in Ireland. A) is easier so let’s start there.

Option A) Your CRC is means to an end; it allows you to obtain an airside ID and as such you don’t actually get your mitts on the CRC document. It stays somewhere between the Access & Identification Centre (AIC) and your airlines HR department.

You will apply for the CRC via the airport security office at the airport you’re based at and they will be liaising with your company and generally know you're coming looking for airport ID. The security office/HR will give you forms to fill out:

1. Guidelines for candidates completing ID-1 Form and Garda Vetting Form

2. ID-1 Form

3. GARDA VETTING APPLICATION FORM

4. 5 Year Background Check

These four forms are available below in the Files section.

Because why not handwrite out your current address and any other address you’ve lived at ever in your life in triplicate? And I quote; “Please state all addresses from year of birth to present date”.

Send all that stuff back to the AIC and eventually they will send an Airside ID to your companies HR. Or not in which case; what have you been hiding?

Option B) If you’ve lived in Ireland for any length of time and need a CRC or as I affectionally refer to it; Dante’s nine levels of bureaucracy hell.

No-one in the Gardai has heard of this process except the Superintendents so you need to be politely persistent.

1. Go to your local Gardai/Police station to submit the following document

1.1. Two recent passport photos

1.2. Your passport and a photocopy

1.3. A stamped, addressed envelope to your own home address

1.4. A letter addressed to your local Superintendent requesting a "Police Certificate" for the consulate required for the purposes of securing an aviation job requiring a CRC abroad.

2. Once you’ve submitted it; chase it up with a phone call a few days later because apparently that helps to speed it up – this was from the person I spoke to within the Gardai HQ who knew of such things….

3. Go to the Department of Foreign Affairs building located at Iveagh House, 80 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin and get your CRC stamped and signed at the passport office. Once again this is a very rare procedure so you need to speak slowly and quietly to the staff because you don’t want to startle them into refusing anything that they haven’t seen before. You will probably face resistance.

4. Then get the stamped and signed CRC translated into the language you need. I can recommend Declan Lawless at CTC translations – declan@ctc4.com

5. The country I was going to, *cough*hina*cough*, then requires

5.1. photocopy of the Irish CRC

5.2. photocopy of your passport

5.3. 20 euro postal order from An Post

5.4. SAE just to be safe

6. Submit at the consulate and wait for it to be sent to your home address.

Hope this clarifies things; it can be done but obviously it's a ridiculous amount of chasing up paperwork!

Good luck & leave some feedback in the comments if I've missed something!