Minister for Justice announces closure of scheme popular with Chinese investors.
Immigrant Investor Programme
The Immigrant Investor Programme provided a pathway to residency for high-net-worth individuals. The scheme required that the applicant have a net worth of €2 million and be willing to invest €1 million into approved investment options for a period of at least three years. These approved investment options included enterprise investment, investment funds and real estate investment trusts. The scheme also allowed for a philanthropic endowment of €500,000 to a project of social benefit. Applicants had to meet good character requirements, including demonstrating that they had no prior criminal convictions.
The scheme was hugely popular with Chinese investors. Last year, of the 1,316 applications received by the government, all but 41 were from Chinese nationals.
Schemes such as this, often labelled ‘golden visas’, have come in for immense criticism, especially from the EU’s Commission where it is thought that such schemes encourage money laundering and corruption.
The Irish scheme did have due diligence checks in places to ensure that funds were not emanating from illicit sources.
Sudden closure
Last week, Minister Harris announced that the Irish scheme would be closed on the day following the announcement. Any applications pending before the Department will be dealt with, but no new applications will be accepted.
The closure follows the closure of similar schemes in countries such as Czech Republic, Greece, Malta, and Portugal.
Other EU countries also have ‘golden passport’ schemes where high-net-worth individuals can purchase citizenship without any need to meet the usual requirements, such as residency or family connections to a country. These had been seen as a means for Russian oligarchs to avoid sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine since, as citizens of the European Union, it would be more difficult to treat them as Russian nationals. Ireland’s scheme did not offer immediate access to citizenship.
The closure of the scheme will be a blow, particularly, to a number of social enterprises, which depend on it for investment.
