1. There is little difficulty in obtaining a visitors visa for a citizen from the Ukraine to come to visit you in Ireland. A 90 visa will be easily granted for her to come and visit you here. Go to www.inis.gov.ie and you will find the necessary application forms ti fill in. This is the website of the irish Naturalisation & Immigration Service who handle this issue.

2. If you want to live together in Ireland, the one definite way for her to live in Ireland is for her to have your child, who will be an Irish citizen. This will give her the right to live and work anywhere in the EU. Apart from this, you will need to be living together for a minimum of three years to be considered a settled relationship who will qualify for a visa for her to live with you. As a result, you may find the four years for a divorce will have elapsed by the time this arises. Finally, the other options, when you are single are to enter into a civil partnership or marriage with this woman.

3. Both these options will give her the right to live and work in Ireland on a permanent basis once the marriage is valid.

4. Yes, a divorce must be finalised before you can opt into a Civil Partnership or marriage. Irish law does not allow a person to have two legal status relationships at the same time. Secondly, living together means in essence cohabitation. Visits are not really evidence of living together. Some element of permanent presence is necessary. This means that it is very difficult to live together unless you were living in the Ukraine or some third country, other than Ireland or spending part of the time in Ireland and part of the time in the Ukraine as and when a visitors visa for Ireland was available to you.