25 signatures reached
To: Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan, and the members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice.
Protect the 5-year citizenship pathway for people already living in Ireland
Protect the 5-year citizenship pathway for people already living in Ireland
Our ask:
Include transitional provisions in the Irish Nationality and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2026 so that anyone lawfully resident in Ireland before the Bill commences retains the current five-year reckonable residence pathway.
Our ask:
Include transitional provisions in the Irish Nationality and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2026 so that anyone lawfully resident in Ireland before the Bill commences retains the current five-year reckonable residence pathway.
Set any language requirement at a level proportionate to civic participation.
Why is this important?
No evidence has been offered for the eight-year figure. The Department has not published research, has not conducted an impact assessment, and has not identified what problem in the current system this is meant to solve. Organisations working with migrant communities said so publicly within a day of the announcement. A three-year extension to the citizenship pathway of every lawful resident in the State is not a technical adjustment, and it has been proposed without a stated basis.
Thousands of people came to Ireland lawfully, under rules the State set. Nurses and doctors keeping wards open, care workers, engineers, hospitality staff, researchers. They planned their lives — mortgages, children's schooling, career decisions — around a five-year pathway. Moving that line to eight years after they arrived changes the terms of an agreement they have already kept.
The Department says the number of new citizens rose sharply. It did. But no eligibility rule was loosened in that period. What changed was processing speed: the Department's own figures show application processing times fell from 15 months in 2023 to 8 months in 2024 following digitisation. A backlog being cleared is not evidence that the rules are too generous.
The Department also says this aligns Ireland with other EU states. Germany reduced its standard naturalisation requirement from eight years to five in 2024 — the OECD records that the stated aim was to raise citizenship uptake and make Germany more attractive to foreign talent. France requires five years, reduced to two for graduates of French universities. The EU Long-Term Residence Directive itself sets a five-year threshold. German law counts time spent in the country as a student in full; Ireland's Stamp 2 does not count at all. Eight years would place Ireland above Germany and France, not alongside them.
Where research does exist, it points the other way. The OECD's own study of naturalisation found a clear positive effect of citizenship on labour market integration, particularly on access to higher-skilled and better-paid work. When Canada extended its residence requirement by a single year, one study found wages among naturalised men fell by 11%. The Department has produced no comparable analysis of what three additional years would cost.
Meanwhile, the fastest-growing route to Irish citizenship is untouched by this Bill. Applications to the Foreign Births Register from US residents rose from 11,601 in 2024 to 18,910 in 2025 — a 63% increase in a single year, the highest since digital records began. That route carries no residence requirement whatsoever. If rising numbers are the problem, this Bill does not address them. It addresses only the people who are already here, working and paying tax.
We are not asking the Government to abandon reform. We are asking it not to apply new rules retrospectively to people who have already spent years meeting the old ones.
Thousands of people came to Ireland lawfully, under rules the State set. Nurses and doctors keeping wards open, care workers, engineers, hospitality staff, researchers. They planned their lives — mortgages, children's schooling, career decisions — around a five-year pathway. Moving that line to eight years after they arrived changes the terms of an agreement they have already kept.
The Department says the number of new citizens rose sharply. It did. But no eligibility rule was loosened in that period. What changed was processing speed: the Department's own figures show application processing times fell from 15 months in 2023 to 8 months in 2024 following digitisation. A backlog being cleared is not evidence that the rules are too generous.
The Department also says this aligns Ireland with other EU states. Germany reduced its standard naturalisation requirement from eight years to five in 2024 — the OECD records that the stated aim was to raise citizenship uptake and make Germany more attractive to foreign talent. France requires five years, reduced to two for graduates of French universities. The EU Long-Term Residence Directive itself sets a five-year threshold. German law counts time spent in the country as a student in full; Ireland's Stamp 2 does not count at all. Eight years would place Ireland above Germany and France, not alongside them.
Where research does exist, it points the other way. The OECD's own study of naturalisation found a clear positive effect of citizenship on labour market integration, particularly on access to higher-skilled and better-paid work. When Canada extended its residence requirement by a single year, one study found wages among naturalised men fell by 11%. The Department has produced no comparable analysis of what three additional years would cost.
Meanwhile, the fastest-growing route to Irish citizenship is untouched by this Bill. Applications to the Foreign Births Register from US residents rose from 11,601 in 2024 to 18,910 in 2025 — a 63% increase in a single year, the highest since digital records began. That route carries no residence requirement whatsoever. If rising numbers are the problem, this Bill does not address them. It addresses only the people who are already here, working and paying tax.
We are not asking the Government to abandon reform. We are asking it not to apply new rules retrospectively to people who have already spent years meeting the old ones.