I am advised by the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) of my Department that a notice was placed on the website www.inis.gov.ie in March of this year aimed at clarifying and standardising the terms and conditions in respect of applications from retired foreign nationals seeking to come and live in Ireland. Prior to that more ad hoc arrangements were applied in this area.
Persons who were granted permission prior to the changes however are not affected and their permissions can be renewed on the same terms as before provided they continue to comply with the terms of their permission and remain law abiding.
The immigration stamp has been changed for new cases to a stamp 0 which is a low level permission not intended to be reckonable for naturalisation or long term residence. This is consistent with the permission granted to the elderly dependent relatives of Irish citizens or others already entitled to live here. The key financial consideration in respect of a retiree is that the person must have sufficient and sustainable resources to ensure that they will not now or in the future become a burden on the State. In the case of retirees this was set at an income of €50,000 per person. They were also expected to have a lump sum sufficient to cater for unforeseen circumstances and sufficient otherwise to purchase some form of dwelling.
The matter will be kept under review.
