Written answers

Thursday, 9 March 2023

Department of Justice and Equality

Immigration Policy

Photo of Matt CarthyMatt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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303. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of joint applications made to the Immigrant Investor Programme; the amount invested or endowed, programme by year, country of origin, by the number of individuals involved in the joint application, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12110/23]

Photo of Matt CarthyMatt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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304. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality when the Immigrant Investor Programme will cease accepting any new applications; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12111/23]

Photo of Matt CarthyMatt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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305. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if he is aware of any registered charity having been requested to make payments to third parties as a finders fee in relation to the Immigrant Investor Programme; the number of such instances brought to his attention; if related applicants to the programme were successful; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12112/23]

Photo of Simon HarrisSimon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 303, 304 and 305 together.

Each individual investor application to the Immigration Investor Program (IIP) is a standalone application and must be submitted in association with a particular project. A specific project may have numerous individual investor applications associated with it, depending on the amount of funding sought.

The statistics in relation to multiple applications associated with a single project are not maintained in the manner requested by the Deputy.

The closure of the Programme will not affect existing projects or individuals already approved under the programme. My Department will continue to monitor existing approved projects in relation to the delivery and for compliance with the terms of the Programme. Current applications on hand at the time of closure will continue to be considered.

My Department has no role in how investors are matched with specific projects or recommending any project. The matching of potential investors with projects are matters for the relevant project owners. Investments approved under the IIP are made directly to the projects concerned and not through the Department of Justice.

The Department is aware that there are a number of agents operating in the IIP field who assist matching investors to projects, however, this is a commercial transaction between two parties and any arrangements between them are a matter for those parties. Such agent fees are not covered under the IIP programme. As part of the assessment process, the IIP unit routinely seek confirmation from projects that agent fees are not included in their proposal.

The IIP Unit has published a FAQ on my Department's website, which will be updated with any further arising questions from the closure, and is available here:

My Department does not currently publish the details of individual approved IIP investments. The tables below provides a breakdown of IIP applications received, approved and the value of investments since the inception of the programme to the end of September 2022.

Year
Applications received
Approved applications
Value of Approved Investment
2012 5 2 1,500,000
2013 18 16 12,200,000
2014 30 5 2,950,000
2015 75 70 38,300,000
2016 334 33 18,750,000
2017 324 369 250,700,000
2018 423 155 138,750,000
2019 443 237 209,300,000
2020 339 270 188,000,000
2021 258 264 185,700,000
2022 1316 306 205,900,000
TOTAL 3565 1727 1,252,050,000

Approvals issued in any year may relate to applications which were received in previous years due to the time taken to process applications.

Investment Type
Total Applications Approved
Total Value of Investment
Enterprise 876 740,200,000
Investment Fund 243 225,000,000
REIT 6 12,000,000
Endowment 546 220,900,000
Bond & Mixed Investment 56 53,950,000
TOTAL 1,727 1,252,050,000

Nationality
Applications approved
China 1,614
USA 33
Vietnam 18
Rest of the World 62
TOTAL 1,727

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