Poor oversight and vetting issues marred 'cash-for-citizenship' scheme, report finds

One issue noted was that the residential address of investors was not held by the Irish immigration service once citizenship was granted, nor was the geographic location of received investments recorded. File photo: iStock

Ireland’s ‘cash-for-citizenship' programme suffered from poor oversight, a lack of “any real vision”, and issues surrounding the vetting carried out on applicants, a report compiled for the Department of Justice found.

Consultancy EY was commissioned by the department to evaluate the Immigrant Investment Programme (IIP) in 2019, and delivered its final report in November 2020, though it is only now being published.