Call for Minister for Justice to explain abrupt closure of ‘golden visa’ scheme

Acting Minister for Justice Simon Harris should attend the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs to explain why he abruptly shut down the so-called “golden visa” scheme for millionaire investors last week.

The call was made by Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy who said that concerns had been raised about the immigrant investor scheme since 2019. She said Mr Harris should outline in public the rationale behind the decision and why it was taken so suddenly to close off new applicants to the scheme which has been in existence for a decade.

She said the way the scheme had turned out was that It was predominantly for people from China and Hong Kong, which comprised the vast majority of applicants.

“There was an audit done in 2019 and red flags were raised at that point about the ability to properly research people applied for these visas,” she said.

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“The Minister needs to tell us, first of all, why it was shut down as suddenly as it was and what the basis for that was. He will need to tell us if he will be considering revoking some of the visas and if there were red flags around particular individuals. He also needs to tell us how he is going to handle the 1,500 or so current applications that have to be processed.”

Last week Mr Harris announced he was shutting down the scheme, saying it was “no longer appropriate” to keep it open.

The programme opened residency in the State to non-Europeans with at least €2 million in personal wealth. They were in return required to invest €1 million in an Irish business or to make a €500,000 philanthropic donation. A private briefing note for Ministers said carrying out due diligence on the escalating number of applications from one country had become “extremely difficult”.

It also questioned a noticeable shift to “passive” civil society endowments, saying many involved “no investment strategy and little job creation”.

Concern was also expressed about the programme having a “displacement effect” on other funding streams. The scheme had raised €1.25 billion since 2012 but, amid concerns about Ireland’s international reputation, among other things, Minister Harris closed the scheme to new applicants with only a day’s notice.

All but 41 of the 1,316 applications to join in 2022 were from people in China, a record year for submission after speculation since last year that the programme might be closed.