Ok, so I finally got my Irish police report after quite the farce.
So I thought I'd let people know how I managed after 6 visits to the Garda Station!

1st - The instructions on the website, www.garda.ie are wrong, or at the very best incomplete.
2nd - These only work if you're in Ireland and are Irish

First you need to go to your local Garda Station in person. As far as the Garda could tell me, it's the local station for the area that you're living in at the moment.

You need to know the following things (I had a letter with all this stuff cos I was following the websites stuff
1. Name
2. DOB
3. Current Address
4. Length of Time living at that address
5. Country of birth
6. All previous Irish Addresses and lenght of time there
7. Purpose for applying for a Certificate - (I wrote "non-immigrant US visa")

At the station you'll be asked to fill in a form with all these details. If they don't know what you're talking about when you ask, keep trying. No one at the station I went to knew anything, except a senior officer that came out after 15 minutes. Don't let them tell you that you have to write to the Headquarters.

When you fill in the form you have to sign and date it (supposedly the date is very important?)

The Garda will then photocopy the following things.
1. Passport
2. LONG FORM birth cert
3. Any other documents which may support your application (ie. Request document from Embassy or Foreign Authority)

You need to bring these in for the Garda to photocopy, you can't photocopy them yourself, cos they have to verify the originals.
I accidentally on purpose forgot to include number 3 because I was applying before I'd received my packet 3 and I got it!

I included a Stamped Addressed Envelope as per the web instructions and it came back to me in that, but the form didn't mention anything about it.

There's no charge and it takes (in theory) 4 weeks. It took me 10 weeks from the first visit and 8 weeks from the final visit to the station. This might have been cos it was over Christmas though.

Anyhoo, hope that helps!

Good Luck!

Whoa!! My fiance and I just applied for his via post because we live out of the country now, but lived in Ireland all of last year. I was told from our district superintendent office that we needed to submit a written request listing all of the things you mention above, plus photocopies of any official documents that can prove identity. We sent everything off at the beginning of the week, assuming that all would be well.

Does anybody know what happens if we can't get one because we aren't physically present in Ireland? We're living in Spain at the moment, so popping over to Ireland for a day to get it done isn't really feasible...

I swear something gets me freaked out at least once a day with this whole process. Here I am spazzing out and paranoid again...

Thanks for the heads up!

I have no clue about outside the country!
What you did seems right by the website from what I remember.
Ah sure it's Ireland, I'm sure it'll all work out in the end!

i just got frustrated at my end cos no-one knew what they were doing and the website was wrong!

I'm sure you'll be grand!

Wow I didn't realise it takes that long!
Might get it done sooner rather than later then....

Yeah, they told my Fiance it would take about 2 weeks or so to get it back. He's in Wexford and there isn't much to pull for him. He has only been there since Oct 2 and prior to that was living in London for 6 years. The UK one threw us a bit off due to a) it is 10 quid and they won't take foreign post cheques. We just sent cash in a registered letter. Hopefully it will work out. I wish we had started this sooner - I became confused with the process unfortunately. Right now we are holding off sending back the statement of reediness until the end of next week to try to give both police certs time to get done.

I too want to pull my hair out.

This all sounds too similar! We at the time both lived in the North of Ireland and per the instructions in Packet 3 where supposed to apply to London for my police report? It didn't make any sense as the North and London don't share the same criminal database so in theory I could be a mass murder in the North and per my report from London I was never in any trouble? We then lived right on the border it also meant I could be a criminal in the South but not in the North?

We went to our nearest Garda Station, about 1000ft over the border and asked the same questions. The Garda there had no idea, no clue as to what was going on. In fact they ran about like headless chickens for about 15 - 20 minutes! They ended up calling "HQ" and the operator in Dublin told them to direct us to the website or to post and send a payment for I believe EUR 6 or EUR 10 at the time to an address they gave us in Dublin. They also asked us to mark it as an Information Request or a Freedom of Information Act request or something. We never did as it didn't look like we needed it per Packet 3.

I went to the embassy with my PSNI report (which wasn't needed but had stuff from the past on it) and my clean report from the National Database in London I explained at the interview the who, what's and where's and they gave me back my PSNI report and kept the report from London!

Now I live in London. But previously have lived in Dublin. Would I need to get a Garda report? If yes, Whats the quickest way of getting it even though I don't live in Dublin. Should I post a letter? Should I call the local garda station?

Thanks for everyones help.

If you lived in Dublin for more than 6 months then yes, you need a police report from here. Not sure how to get one, maybe contact the embassy?