Meath Live understands that an additional investor has come forward to assist with the redevelopment of Pairc Tailteann bringing the number of backers who have put in €500,000each to six.
The investors, all understood to be Chinese, have become involved under the Ireland Immigrant Investor Program.
This was established in 2012 to allow wealthy individuals and families from outside the European Union to obtain residency in Ireland in exchange for making an approved investment in the Irish economy.
Although permanent residence is not offered by the program, once the appropriate conditions are met residency permission can be extended every few years for an indefinite period. The Ireland Investor Immigration Program does not officially provide Irish citizenship by investment, but long-term residency in Ireland can be used to support a citizenship application under the country’s naturalization rules.
Obtaining a “Golden Visa” through the Irish Immigrant Investor Program is the only possible route towards Ireland citizenship by investment currently available. In order to be eligible for an Irish Investment Visa, a candidate must have a legally accumulated minimum net worth of €2 million. The applicant must also have good character, with no criminal convictions anywhere in the world. Before an EU Investor Visa is officially granted, an applicant must submit evidence to the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) that he or she has successfully made an adequate investment in the country in accordance with the program’s rules.
It is believed that Meath county committee have recently changed agents who operate by introducing prospective investors to the various projects.
An inside source told Meath Live, ‘ The original agent who had been in place for a few years was not really delivering what was required and the agent who got a huge number of backers in for the Louth development at Darver approached Meath officials and asked would they use him and they switched their business to him.
‘When everyone including the agents gets their cut of the €500k the county committee would be left with around €330,000 so that suggests around €1.8m has been raised so far, it is clearly not an insignificant amount but still a long way short of what is needed, but every little helps and if the new guy delivers like he did in Louth it would be a massive step forward.’
