Category: News

New EB-5 rules raising the minimum investment to $900,000 are scheduled to take effect this week. But President Kraft of IIUSA thinks there’s a good chance that won’t happen.

The new re-authorization bill “definitely eliminates gerrymandering, makes it very clear what projects would qualify in urban distressed areas and in rural areas,” says Kraft, speaking to IMI on the sidelines of last week’s Henley & Partners Global Citizenship Conference in London.

10,000 investors, not visas
The bill would also do away with what EB-5 practitioners refer to as the “derivative interpretation” of the 10,000-visa quota, which counts family members of the main applicant toward the cap. When the law was first written, in 1992, explains Kraft, its writers anticipated 10,000 investor units – i.e., main applicants – rather than individuals. The derivative interpretation is largely to blame for the retrogression problem that’s driven EB-5 wait times up to as much as 20 years for certain applicant groups, notably the Chinese.

A change in interpretation would have the effect of tripling the number of available visas (on average, each investor includes about two family members in their application), which would go a long way toward reducing the backlog.

Sentenced to 17 years of retrogression, with possibility of parole after three years
But Kraft also reveals another, more creative solution to the delays that, if he gets his way, will be part of the re-authorization; “parole”.

“[parole] would allow people who are backlogged to apply for the parole category and enter the United States after three years and work and have the benefits of a green card until their application is approved. So, at least, they can come into the country and begin their lives.”

Investment requirements under the EB-5 are governed by regulations that, in turn, are tied to the bill under which the program is authorized. In July this year, the Department of Homeland Security published new regulations that included an increase in minimum investments from US$500,000 and US$1 million to US$900,000 and US$1.8 million, respectively.

The new regulations, however, are only scheduled to take effect on Nov 21st this year. Should a bill re-authorizing the EB-5 program pass before this date, obviating the current bill on which the new regulations are based, the planned increase to US$900,000 and US$1 million would not take place.

The re-authorization bill now under consideration has price increases of its own baked into it, although they are slightly different: “Under the bill being considered right now, the minimum investment amount is US$1 million, and for non-TEA (Targeted Employment Area) it’s US$1.1 million,” reveals Kraft, who is also careful to point out that these numbers could change somewhat before the bill is finalized.

The IIUSA President also indicates that while he’s quite confident new legislation will “get worked out”, he does not think it will be ready by November 21st but that it would most likely pass a month or so later. That means, in theory, we could see the new 900k/1.8 million prices being in effect for a period of just one month before the new rules take over.

“There’s been a discussion of the possibility of holding off on any regulation implementation – if there’s just a four week period, it doesn’t make sense to put those regulations into effect as it would create a lot of confusion,” says Kraft, indicating that Congress may decide to never let the new regulations tied to the old bill materialize if a new bill is already slated for introduction.

One of the major benefits of the new bill, Kraft highlights, is that it comes with a six-year authorization, which will provide sorely-needed certainty for the industry.

“We haven’t had that [certainty] for many years. We’ve been going month-to-month, or six months, nine months, and so on, and that’s disruptive for practitioners in the US and also for investors from around the world.”

Source: imidaily.com
Published: 18 November 2019

Cyprus decided to revoke 26 citizenships granted to investors after the government came under intense pressure following allegations that members of Cambodia’s political elite and a fugitive Malaysian financier received Cypriot EU passports.

These cases led to increased criticism of Cyprus’ Citizenship for Investment which was already under scrutiny from Brussels.

Those to be stripped of Cypriot citizenship include Malaysian businessman Jho Low who is wanted by Malay authorities, the US and Interpol in connection with a multi-billion scam that broke in 2015 when he was managing an investment firm named 1Malaysia Development Berhad headed by the then prime minister of Malaysia Najib Razak. He denies any wrongdoing.

The Real estate sector is concerned as it fears the emergence of more negative cases will further discredit the CIS scheme to which “the economy owes part of its recovery to”.

A boom in the construction industry, especially luxury high-rises, is credited to the passport scheme which seriously took-off after the 2013 financial crisis.

Developers of luxury homes are also facing external competition from countries like Greece which is preparing to launch a similar scheme.

Outgoing president of the Association of Land Development and Construction Entrepreneurs Pantelis Leptos told Stockwatch the programme should be shielded as it has largely contributed to all sectors of the economy.

He said the new stricter criteria that began to apply in the summer protect the scheme from being exploited by criminals.

Korantina Homes CEO George Ioannou agrees that the project should be protected pointing out that the CIS was the only scheme to offer work to all families in Cyprus, directly and indirectly, from lawyers, accountants to cleaners and hoteliers.

He also warns that “losing the scheme will have serious consequences on the economy” urging politicians to leave it out of their political disputes.

Defending the government’s handling of the issue he said, “we definitely do not want criminals in Cyprus”.

He argued that “these are old cases of investors who took advantage of the programme at a time when it was the only lifeline for the country”.

Antonis Loizou, CEO of Antonis Loizou and Associates said even developers “were advertising the sale of Cyprus passports instead of promoting their properties”.

Loizou argues “the scheme must continue based on sound criteria. Not all investors are cowboys. On the contrary, many foreign investors have been active in other sectors such as the hotel industry, marinas, golf.”

Source: financialmirror.com
Published: 11 November 2019

In the 2018-2019 fiscal year, Australia’s Significant Investor Visa (SIV), a substream of the country’s broader Business Innovation and Investment Program (BIIP) saw its fortunes reverse for the first time since July 2015, when investment requirements were re-channeled toward private equity and venture capital and away from real estate, sending application volumes plummeting.

Performance picked up markedly in the year to June 30th, 2019; investors lodged 24% more applications than during the preceding year, up from 341 to 423. The states and territories of Australia, meanwhile, also approved 7% more of those applications (183 vs. 196).

Just the tip of the FDI-berg
In terms of the qualifying investments reported by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the year-on-year increase came to 4.4% as the program raised AUD 955 million during the 2018-19 reporting year. All told, the SIV has brought AUD 11.06 billion worth of FDI to Australia since 2012. But that does not account for the downstream non-SIV investment that has resulted as a consequence of welcoming more than two thousand UHNWIs to the country:

Andrew Martin, Managing Director of the SIV’s leading fund manager, Moelis Australia, says estimates indicate “the follow-on investment from SIV investors has been up to four to five times more than the mandatory $5 million, meaning capital invested into Australia could be as much as $50 billion.”

In August, however, Immigration Minister David Coleman hinted Australia’s BIIP, of which the SIV is the most exclusive, would be the subject of reconsideration.

According to ABC News Australia, Coleman said he would be “reviewing our business investment visas with a simple question in mind: can we get a better deal for Australia?”

On a cumulative basis, Mainland Chinese retain an undisputed dominance of the program, accounting for 86% of applications and 87% of approvals. Including Hong Kong, Greater China contributed 91% of all SIV-visa grantees.

The propensity to approve any given application varies to a non-negligible degree between Australia’s states and territories, who nominate SIV applicants. While Victoria, for instance, was the recipient of 49% of applications in the 2016-17 reporting period, it accounted for 64% of approved ones.

Victoria and New South Wales – the home states of Melbourne and Sydney, respectively – between them accounted for 86% of both applications and approvals in 2018-19, a tendency that’s remained relatively consistent throughout the program’s history. But investors are increasingly favoring other parts of Australia as well; while in 2015-16, only 3% of applications were lodged in a state other than Victoria and New South Wales, that fraction had grown to 14% by the end of June, 2019.

Source: imidaily,com
Published: 10 November 2019

The Investment Migration Council (IMC) expresses chagrin at being excluded from consultations on a report it says was “hijacked by ill-informed, unaccountable third party organizations.”

In an opinion adopted yesterday, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) “echoes the European Parliament’s call in a recent report to phase out all investor schemes, and urges the Member States to follow this recommendation or provide reasonable arguments and evidence for not doing so.”

The Opinion follows a, by-now, familiar theme; IM programs allegedly pose tremendous risks of security, money laundering, tax evasion, and corruption. The IMC hints that it fully expects the refrain of misconceptions to be repeated widely in the usual outlets known for their antipathy to investment migration, including the Transparency International, the Guardian, OOCRP, and Global Witness.

The IMC, which has been aware of the planned publication of the Opinion for several months, expresses disappointment at not being included in the consultation process, considering their expertise on the topic and the relative lack of the same on the part of the rapporteurs.

On several occasions in recent months, the IMC wrote to the EESC and Jean-Marc Roirant – the head rapporteur who is chiefly an expert on education policy rather than immigration or economics – in a bid to have its views considered, to little avail.

In a letter to Roirant dated August 29th, Bruno L’ecuyer, CEO of the IMC, states:

The IMC actively collaborates with policy and lawmakers to ensure the development of regulation that minimises the risk of abuse and retains the benefits of Investment Migration. As such, we are surprised that the committee has not yet invited the IMC, as subject matter experts, to be consulted during the preparation of this opinion.

Given widely spread misconceptions of these programmes and disinformation campaigns undertaken by certain organisations and individuals, we believe an objective and fact-based approach, including contributions from all relevant stakeholders, is essential in order to ensure a balanced report.

The letter, explains the IMC, went unanswered. The organization again reached out to Roirant on September 17th.

As the Committee will appreciate, an objective, balanced and fact-based report that includes up to date contributions from relevant stakeholders, is essential from a governance perspective. The lack of balanced insight was recognised by the European Commission itself post the publication of its own report, hence the expert and stakeholder working groups they subsequently set up and on which we and our representative governments are participating in since April/May this year.

To strive for such a balance of inputs/views to be reflected in your work and that of the committee I attach our detailed comments on the current draft option. My key ask as CEO of the main industry body representing investment migration that is registered with the EU Transparency Register and enjoys Special Consultative Status with the UN ECOSOC is that industry views are represented in the report, anything short of that would be intellectually disingenuous which most certainly would not be the intention of the committee.

In the end, says Mr. L’ecuyer, “a small, tiny, almost insignificant number of the amendments we proposed have been taken on board.”

The IMC highlights the Opinion’s (and the January report’s) virtual disregard of the benefits of investment migration. No mention was made, says the association, of the economic contributions investment migration programs have had on European economies, which the European Parliament’s own Research Service has recognized as amounting to some EUR 9 billion across eight EU member states in the last decade.

Nor was any consideration given to the IMC’s work on the promulgation of industry-wide standards on due diligence, professional ethics, and best practices.

In an email to IMI, the IMC states that “it is a shame that the IMC was not included in the process of drafting the EESC report – as the industry experts we would have been expected to be included in the evidence-gathering process and to be invited to provide evidence. We, therefore, flagged the above concerns to the EESC in the hope that they would be taken on board during the drafting process but, unfortunately, this has not been the case – although some smaller amendments were integrated into the text.”

The same statement also lamented the one-sided approach to crafting the report, which was in large part prepared by representatives from Transparency International – whose views on investment migration are well-established – particularly Laure Brillaud, author of previous TI reports on investment migration, who is listed as among the experts in the January report.

“The lack of balanced insight in the European Commission’s report earlier this year was recognized by the European Commission itself, leading to the establishment of the expert and stakeholder working groups in which we are participating. It is disappointing that these steps to address the lack of balance in the debate have not been reflected in the EESC’s drafting process. It is crucial that the European policy debate is not dominated by a small number of external stakeholders representing only one side of the picture,” the statement from the IMC continued.

Today, the IMC will release another public statement on the matter, excerpts of which are reprinted below:

The IMC cautions the EU against the risk of a policy hijack by ill-informed and unaccountable third party organisations ahead of the adoption of a European Economic and Social Committee Opinion on residence and citizenship by investment.

[…] The IMC believes that it has been heavily influenced by third party organisations that have been given full access to the Committee and have had a significant role in drafting the related documents. What is particularly concerning is that these third party organisations have little or no specialist understanding of the standard industrial processes at the heart of investment migration. This can be seen by the multiple factual errors littered across their previously published work.

In addition, it would appear that these organisations have been given unprecedented privileged access to the Committee, something denied to the official trade association that represents the majority of the investment migration industry – a remarkable situation in such a legally and technically complex industry where it is unlikely that many members of the Committee will have an educated view in advance of the proceedings.

Source: imidaily.com
Published: 31 October 2019

Vanuatu’s two Citizenship by Investment Programmes, the Vanuatu Development Support Programme (VDSP) and the Vanuatu Contribution Programme (VCP), have become significant sources of revenue for the Pacific island-state. In 2018, the Programmes contributed around US$90 million to the Government’s reserves, and in June 2019, the Government had already collected approximately US$45 million from its economic citizens.

Despite the dramatic economic success of the two Programmes however, the processes adopted by Vanuatu in accepting candidates for citizenship have been raising eyebrows, particularly with respect to the due diligence performed by the Government on its prospective citizens.

Members of the EU Parliament, for example, have expressed concern that Vanuatu’s economic citizens are not properly vetted – despite being able to use their Ni Vanuatu citizenship to circumvent Schengen scrutiny procedures. This is because all holders of ordinary passports issued by Vanuatu may enter the Schengen Area without a visa for travels of up to 90 days within any 180-day period. Citizens of Vanuatu can also travel to the United Kingdom and its Crown dependencies for six months visa-free, and to the Republic of Ireland.

These concerns were recently acknowledged by the nation’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ralph Regenvanu, who promised the Government would embark on a review of its Programmes. In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Regenvanu said: “We are getting some negative implications as a result of the lack of due diligence on applicants to get citizenships, which is affecting our bilateral relations with other countries,” further noting that Vanuatu would “stop some [Programme] aspects” and make “other aspects better.”

The Vanuatu Programmes contrast with those adopted in the Caribbean, where due diligence procedures are known to be stringent, and, consequenly, where visa-free and visa-on-arrival destinations for citizens are greater and on the increase. Caribbean nations review prospective citizens in-house through their purpose-trained Citizenship by Investment Units and through third party due diligence providers. These due diligence providers are of high repute, based in major partner nations such as the United Kingdom and the United States, and specialised in analysing family and business connections, criminal activity, reputation, and source of funds. International agencies such as Interpol are also consulted.

Mr Regenvanu said that the changes to the Programmes would be implemented before March 2020, when the Government of Prime Minister Charlot Salwai will face elections. It may be wise for the Salwai Government to mirror the Caribbean and mandate external due diligence reviews of their candidates, particularly from due diligence firms that are respected across the European Union, where anxiety about its two Citizenship by Investment Programmes seems to be at its highest.

Source: wicnews.com
Published: 29 October 2019

Cyprus will soon begin repaying a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), helping further reduce public debt, Finance Minister Harris Georgiades said on Tuesday.

“Having repaid what remained of the loan from Russia, we are planning, and have set in motion the formal process for the early and full repayment of the IMF loan,” the minister told MPs during a discussion of the state budget for 2020.

According to government calculations, early repayment of the IMF loan will result in a debt reduction to 91.1 per cent of GDP in 2020. The IMF loan now stands at around €690 million euros.

For 2019, public debt will come to 96 per cent.

Although 96 per cent is still high, Georgiades noted, it is not unusually excessive for an EU member state, and is deemed to be viable under all stress test scenarios.

For his part, Phaedon Kalozois, director of the Public Debt Management Office, said interest on the IMF loan stands at 1.99 per cent, while the Republic of Cyprus can now borrow from markets at a far lower rate, around 1 per cent.

In late 2018 Cyprus’ sovereign credit rating was upgraded back to investment grade after having been rated ‘junk’ for more than six years.

Georgiades said the government has managed to not only produce balanced budgets in recent years, but more than that yield fiscal surpluses.

In 2019 Cyprus will boast the best fiscal performance across the EU with an estimated budget surplus of just over 3.6 per cent.

“We need to view budget surpluses as a buffer, given that the economic environment is uncertain and we cannot take it for granted that current growth trends will continue,” the minister told lawmakers.

The 2020 budget provides for projected government revenue of €10bn and government expenditure of €9.4bn. The budget surplus will be around 2.7 per cent.

Georgiades stressed that the chief risk to fiscal stability is an internal one. He cited demands by public sector employees for a retroactive reimbursement of prior cuts to their wages and benefits, which the government is fighting in the courts.

Should the civil servants prevail, it could cost the state some €900m in reimbursement payouts, dragging public finances back into deficit territory.

On the citizenship-by-investment scheme, Georgiades reiterated that it has not caused an overheating of the economy due to the concomitant uptick in the construction sector.

“Were the scheme to be scrapped today, the growth capacity of the Cypriot economy would remain robust,” he claimed.

From 2016 to 2018, GDP grew overall by 15.2 per cent, of which only 1.2 per cent is related to construction activity directly tied to the citizenship-via-investment programme.

GDP growth for 2020 is projected at between 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent, although an anticipated global slowdown – due to the uncertainty from Brexit and protectionist trade policies – could put a damper on growth in the years to come.

In his last presentation of a state budget, as he is due to step down as finance minister soon, Georgiades said more work needs to be done to render the economy more competitive.

There are currently nine major reform drives in the form of legislation pending before parliament, he recalled.

These included reforms to the judicial system, local government, tweaking the law governing large-scale investments by slashing red tape, the privatisation of the state lottery, and the privatisation of the stock exchange.

Regarding the banking sector, the minister said despite its stabilisation since the 2012-2013 meltdown, there is no room for complacency.

Non-performing loans on bank balance sheets remain the primary concern and risk.

This is although total NPLs have declined to around €10bn from their peak of €28bn.

Speaking to reporters later, Georgiades was asked whether he had any regrets from his seven years serving as finance minister.

“If there is something I do regret, it is that certain things might have been done sooner, such as the reforms I referred to earlier. We should have pushed these more vigorously.”

Source: cyprus-mail.com
Published: 29 October 2019

The government will soon be applying enhanced due diligence checks on foreign nationals who from now on apply for Cypriot passports via the citizenship-by-investment scheme, while at the same time it will comb through past naturalisations to ensure they comply with up-to-date eligibility requirements.

Interior Minister Constandinos Petrides said on Tuesday that, following a tender, three firms have been pre-selected to supply background screening services to the government.

Separate contracts are due to be signed with the firms in December.

The firms are: Sterling Diligence, S-RM Intelligence and Risk Consulting, and Kroll.

Petrides said the firms would be carrying out “enhanced due diligence checks” for the Cypriot government on individuals applying for the citizenship-by-investment scheme.

The Cyprus Mail understands the contracts will run for at least one year, with each firm required to perform an X amount of checks while under contract. Their work will apply only to new citizenship applications to be filed as of December this year.

Kroll, one of the firms, is a corporate investigations and risk consulting firm based in New York City.

The company held the security contract at the World Trade Centre at the time of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

An internet search reveals that in 2005, as part of a broader operation to crack down on industrial espionage, the government of Brazil formally indicted Kroll’s Brazilian chief executive and five other Kroll employees on criminal charges, including bribery and various breaches of Brazil’s data privacy laws.

In addition to tighter screening going forward, Petrides said also that in the meantime the interior ministry will be utilising existing tools to go through cases of naturalisations granted in the past.

The internal audit will cover the period 2008 up until 2018, when the criteria were tightened. The tool currently being used is a subscription-based database of persons and corporations.

Should any cases turn up where citizenship was granted to individuals who satisfied the criteria at the time of naturalisation, but who subsequent to naturalisation faced criminal charges at their place of residence, or else were placed under EU sanctions, the ministry could initiate a process to revoke their citizenship.

The decision to revoke citizenship would be taken by the cabinet, upon the interior minister’s recommendation.

The move comes in the wake of reports that eight family members or allies of the Cambodian leader, including the country’s police chief who has been instrumental in clamping down on dissent in Cambodia, and its finance minister, had received Cypriot citizenship in 2016 and 2017.

The citizenship-by-investment programme has undergone several revisions since 2013. The latest were introduced in February this year after warnings from the EU. The new stipulations state that applicants must have a Schengen area visa and persons who applied for citizenship in any other EU member state and were turned down were not entitled to obtain Cypriot citizenship as part of the scheme.

To ensure that all incoming funds are not part of money laundering schemes, all transactions also require the investments in Cyprus to be carried out through Cypriot banks. Investments carried out with cash are not allowed.

In addition, as of February 2019 Politically Exposed Persons were no longer eligible for the programme.

The government has announced a probe into the Cambodia-related cases specifically. In parallel, the interior ministry said it would be conducting a broader audit (as opposed to an investigation) into past cases of naturalisation.

The administration is taking flak over its naturalisation scheme after it emerged that the law firm bearing the president’s name was part of the passport industry, as was that of former minister Marios Demetriades whose father’s law firm is among the top passport sellers.

It turned out it was Andreas Demetriades & Co LLC which secured the citizenships for the Cambodian elite.

Interior ministry data showed the firm was involved in 137 applications between 2014 and 2018, a period during which Marios Demetriades was a member of the cabinet that approved them.

President Nicos Anastasiades has vowed to step down should he or his law firm be implicated in any wrongdoing or quid pro quo in the controversial investment programme.

The optics for the government got worse on Sunday, when a fresh report said citizenship was granted in 2016 to a Saudi sheikh, whose late father had been alleged to have had ties to terrorist financing. However, neither the sheikh nor his father were ever charged for links to terrorism.

Source: cyprus-mail.com
Published: 29 October 2019

Applicants waiting to receive Irish citizenship from the Department of Justice fear they could now be waiting years before their applications are approved following a High Court ruling in July.

In July, Mr Justice Max Barrett ruled in the Jones case that foreign nationals applying to become Irish citizens on the basis of their residence “must show a one-year period of residence in Ireland that is ‘unbroken, uninterrupted, connected throughout space or time”.

It threw the application process into chaos with applicants who travelled abroad in the last year – including crossing the border into Northern Ireland – worrying their applications are not eligible.

The ruling has been appealed in the courts and a judgement expected in the coming weeks.

Solicitor Carol Sinnott, whose client Roderick Jones is appealing the July ruling, said there have always been delays in processing applications despite the Department of Justice citing a wait time of around six months.

“At the moment, even before the Jones case, there has been massive delays in citizenship application. We have clients waiting for two-and-a-half years for a decision on their cases, which is horrendous and nothing to do with the Jones case.”

But with a backlog of applications expected as a result of the legal battle, and as applications have already seen longer than expected processing times, applicants say they fear it will be years before they are granted citizenship.

Sudan

One Sudan-born man living in Ireland for more than 10 years, and who asked not to be named, said he feels like he is “in a prison”.

“I got all the papers and submitted them to the minister in 2016. I have been waiting since then and have gotten no news,” he said.

“The last time I received a reply about my application was a few months ago but there was no particular answer to say when I could get citizenship. I got an email saying they received my email but that’s it.”

Foreign nationals are formally given citizenship at ceremonies attended by the justice minister but two ceremonies planned for September and December were cancelled following July’s ruling.

“It’s like I’m in a prison and I cannot go anywhere. My parents are in Sudan and they are getting old. My dad doesn’t understand why I don’t want to see him. We used to be so close and every time he talks to me it makes me cry because I can’t go and visit him until I have Irish citizenship.”

While it has been three years since he first submitted his application, and having been told all of the required documentation was received, he now fears it could be several years before he formally becomes an Irish citizen and can leave and return to Ireland as he pleases.

Reality

Fiona Finn, CEO of NASC, which advocates for migrant and refugee rights, said the Department’s guideline wait time of six months to process applications was not a reality for many.

“It’s a frustrating experience for applicants who don’t know where their application is in the queue and don’t have a time frame for how long it will take for their application to be dealt with. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been our experience that applications are dealt with within a six month period.

“The decision in the Jones case caused a great deal of worry for thousands of migrants. We welcomed the minister’s commitment to legislating in the aftermath of the decision, but we have been disappointed that no guidance has been given to people who are considering applying,” Finn said.

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan said he was working on new legislation proposals to address the High Court’s ruling.

Another applicant from Serbia, who has also been living here for more than a decade, and who asked not to be named, said an immigration officer advised her she could be waiting two years before she is granted citizenship.

“I have asked for three years about applying for citizenship but was told not to do so – even though I qualified for it in 2015,” she said.

“I officially did it this year through a solicitor, who wrote a cover letter and went through my immigration papers. She sent it all in mid-June, with a record of residency which is part of the citizenship form. I’ve been here for 11 years.

“I got an acceptance letter in August, which very vaguely said ‘we will stay in touch, we will communicate with you’ and that was the last time I heard from them.

“My immigration officer mentioned to me that there will be a huge backlog and you might be waiting until next year, or maybe two years, for my citizenship ceremony.”

Solution

TheJournal.ie contacted the Department and asked if there would be further delays to the application process in light of July’s ruling.

A spokesperson said: “The outcome of the [court] appeal will have a bearing on whether or not legislation is required. Should it be necessary, the minister intends to introduce a bill in the Oireachtas as soon as possible this term.

“The Department is doing everything possible to put a solution in place on an urgent basis. At the end of July, the minister obtained Cabinet approval for a proposed bill to address the matter and intensive work is taking place in the Department.”

The spokesperson also said the Department was awaiting the outcome of the court appeal before scheduling any ceremonies.

“As soon as the legal issues are resolved, the Department will make all necessary arrangements for the next Citizenship Ceremony. Invitations will issue four weeks in advance of the ceremony to ensure everyone has adequate notice.

“The advice to those who are planning to apply for citizenship is to continue to collect all of the necessary proofs that support their application and to submit a comprehensive application form. Once a solution is in place, if any additional information is required, applicants will be contacted as part of the processing of their application.”

Source: thejournal.ie
Published: 13 October 2019