Solicitor secures interim order stopping Justice Department from pausing 'golden visa' application
High Court reporters
A solicitor has secured a High Court injunction against the Department of Justice’s decision to pause the processing of his firm's applications to the Government’s controversial Immigrant Investor Programme (IIP).
The IIP, or ‘golden visa’ scheme, allowed well-off non-EU foreign nationals who invested large sums of money in various projects to secure visas allowing them to reside in Ireland.
The Government suddenly announced in 2023 that the scheme, which had run from 2012, was to be closed.
However, there are still hundreds of projects in the system that remain approved that can be invested in two years after the closure was announced in February 2023.
Solicitor Jonathan Cosgrove is seeking various reliefs in the High Court, including an order for the quashing of the Department of Justice’s decision last November “pausing, prohibiting or otherwise interfering” with the processing of applications to the IIP scheme made by him on behalf of various clients.
Mr Cosgrove, the principal solicitor at Aidan T Stapleton Solicitors, Mary’s Abbey, Dublin 7, claims the level of harm posed to his practice by the Department’s decision is “serious and potentially existential”.
Last month, Ms Justice Mary Rose Gearty granted Mr Cosgrove leave to pursue his judicial review proceedings.
In a judgment published today, Mr Justice Anthony Barr granted the injunction sought by Mr Cosgrove, preventing the Minister from continuing with the decision to pause the firm's applications until the conclusion of the judicial review proceedings in front of Ms Justice Gearty.
Mr Justice Barr said he would grant the interim injunction on the grounds of fairness of procedure, noting that the pausing of the applications would have a financial impact on the solicitor’s practice and his ability to earn a livelihood.
Mr Cosgrove alleges that he received an email on November 15, 2024, from a Department of Justice official, informing him that the department had been made aware of a complaint made to the Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA) in relation to his practice “and its involvement with the IIP”.
The email states that the department would be pausing the processing of “all Aidan Stapleton Solicitors IIP applications” while the investigation is ongoing.
Mr Cosgrove says that this email did not explain the basis for or reasoning upon which this decision was made.
In his grounding affidavit, Mr Cosgrove says that he believes that the decision “appears to be connected” to a complaint made to the LSRA made by a named individual, regarding investments made in a company.
Mr Cosgrove goes on to state his belief that this complaint has also been raised with An Garda Síochána, but that his practice has not been contacted by gardaí to it.
Mr Cosgrove says that he “fully rejects” the complaint made about him.
Mr Cosgrove states that the adverse effects of the Department’s decision are “grave”, and that he has been losing clients to a competitor solicitor firm. “The level of harm to the firm, its practice and staff, is serious and potentially existential,” he claims.
Under the scheme, non-EU nationals who were of high net worth, meaning that they had personal wealth of at least €2 million, could apply for a visa to enter and reside in the State if they could establish that they had invested between €500,000 and €1 million in an approved investment project here.
After its 2023 closure, however, existing projects and applications were allowed to run through the system.
There were approximately 1,500 applications in the system at the time and 400 projects that had been accepted as being suitable for investment but investors had not been obtained or identified at the time of the announcement of the closure.
The matter appears before Ms Justice Gearty next month at the High Court for mention.
