The Department of Justice announced today will immediately revoke permissions under the State’s Immigrant Investor Programme (IIP) if investors are found to have funded their applications with debt.
The Ireland Immigrant Investor programme was established by the Irish Government in 2012 to stimulate productive investment in Ireland and to offer residency rights in Ireland to foreign investors.
The Immigrant Investor Programme (IIP) is currently open to non-EEA nationals who commit to an approved investment in Ireland. The Immigrant Investor Programme requires a minimum investment of €1m, from the applicants own resources and not financed through a loan or other such facility, which must be committed for a minimum of three years.
Irish Naturalisation & Immigration Service (INIS) announced last month that under no circumstances will a loan provided to the applicant for the purpose of making an IIP application be considered an appropriate source of funding and such visas will be denied.
Over 90% of investors in Irish IIP are chinese and the investment scheme has raised of 500 million euros
The Irish Government created the Immigrant Investor Programme to facilitate investors and business professionals from outside of the EU to avail of the opportunities of investing and locating business interests in Ireland in order to support investment in Ireland and to enhance Ireland’s position as one of the world’s most globalised economies.
The INIS is separately reviewing the source of funds on applications where debt funding may not have been disclosed. DoJ will publish the terms of reference of a two-part review of the controversial ‘cash-forvisa’ scheme tomorrow
