Figures suggest Latvians partaking in marriages of convenience

FIGURES released by the Department of Justice suggest many Latvians living in Ireland are involved in marriages of convenience, particularly with Pakistani and Bangladeshi asylum seekers.

The Government wants the EU to change the law so they can ban non-EU spouses married to EU citizens from moving to Ireland — unless they live in another EU country first.

This was the case up to two months ago when the European Court of Justice said the Irish were interpreting the legislation incorrectly and must change.

Over the past two years 4,600 such spouses applied to live in Ireland and 2,000 were refused. The Department of Justice said an abnormally high number of these applications came from Nigerians (600) and from Pakistanis (700).

They also noticed that half the Latvian spouses were married to Pakistanis and Bangledeshis. “The figures were analysed by an expert statistician who said that they were abnormal given the general population base and could not be explained,” said an official.

There was also a significant number of Polish people married to Nigerians, he added.

The Irish Refugee Council, however, said the State must consider every case on its merits and the issue of bogus marriages was a separate issue and the Government should take practical steps to do something about it if it was a problem.

For the past two years the Irish authorities insisted that non-EU spouses could only live in Ireland if they had already been granted residency in another member state.

But four couples who were refused the right to live in Ireland appealed this to the courts. The men were from Nigeria and Cameroon and had married EU citizens from Britain, Germany and Poland in Ireland, but were refused residency. Known as the Metock case, the European Court of Justice ruled in July that the decision conflicted with the right to free movement in the EU for EU citizens. It argued an EU person must be able to live with their spouse.

Irish authorities argue that this is residency by the back door and immigrants should not be allowed to use freedom of movement legislation in this way.

Ireland sets its own legislation on control of borders and illegal immigrants.

The European Commission expert group will report back before the end of the year. However, it is unlikely that it will suggest amending the Freedom of Movement legislation and is likely to suggest that countries consider each application separately and judge whether the marriage was one of convenience or not.

Until the court ruling in July the only criteria in Ireland was whether the non-EU spouse had residency rights in another member state.

Other issues, such as how long the couple were married or whether they had children, were not taken into account.