Irish Government Selling Visas for GAA stadium

Just so we're clear is your problem with the flogging of Irish residency or with the money from that going to a sports stadium?

A disgrace, GAA is already a gravy train, don’t they get enough from matches/ sell out concerts and all other manner of fees. They pay the players nothing. Why are they getting government to give them residency as prizes to facilitate building their facilities? Something very wrong with all this.

Basically, a scheme whereby the government says, "If you're wealthy, and you want to reside here long term, you have to pay your way to contribute to the area". And that's a problem, why?

We have a huge number of our own citizens who's sole contribution to the state is to bleed it of every euro of social welfare payments out of it and never contributing back, or business men moving their tax affairs abroad to avoid paying them here. At least these people are actively giving large sums to be invested into the area, and are likely to be people working and paying taxes here.

Or is the problem that the GAA is getting the money? So what if they are, it's a very minuscule amount compared to the worth the GAA provides to the country via economics, community welfare, health, entertainment, facilities etc.

Phase 2 comprises an international sized 4G astro pitch, 2 astro cages, a third grass pitch and an extension of the clubhouse that plans to feature a gym, office facilities, etc.

Seems about right for that.

I for one think it is absolute fantastic we are finally getting the facilities the likes of England and the continent have had for decades, even if the money is slightly dodge.

The IIP Scheme appears to have been in operation for alost a decade. It's not the first GAA facility to secure funding in this manner:

https://www.donegalsporthub.com/termon-gaa-get-six-figure-windfall-via-unique-investment/

(There are more no doubt)

And it's not the first sporting organisation to avail of the scheme:

I'd suggest there are far more sporting organisations that have benefited from funding in the same manner. There are a large number of non-profits that have received finances from this scheme also from what I can tell.

It appears to be a fairly robust application process for funding (from what I can tell) there's a review here: https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/e7fd87-interim-evaluation-of-the-immigrant-investor-programme-iip/

And it seems to be a way in which ANY organisation can attempt to garner funding subject to the varios legal requirements.

I suppose the question around selling Visas in the first instance is the thorny one - once the individuals have passed a vetting process (and I believe there is a stringent one in place) I don't really have an issue.

It's extremely difficult for sports and other organisations to raise funds and if this is another option - so be it. Probably needs to be co-ordinated a bit better on the sporting bodies side though I would suggest.

Well no organisation is in it for the sake of it, GAA get a lot of voluntary help, and grant funding, donated land, and charge a fortune for everything they can from tickets to club wear and just because the local GAA club mightn’t be all bells and whistles, they surely can’t be creaming it? I’m sure the top brass aren’t voluntary. There’s plenty of other organisations that do wonderful work in their communities and they wouldn’t get these ridiculous sweeteners and neither should any organisation. Selling residency for funding is reprehensible. Wide open for corruption and fuel for more of the same dodgy politics we have all seen too much of.

Most countries have similar schemes. It seems that this one involves a "gift" rather than an investment too.

You can get yourself a green card in the US as long as you have $500k to invest into a business there (250k in certain areas/regions)

So selling off passports isn’t corruption?

So what's the problem. This government are handing out full citizenship like candy to bullshitters abusing the asylum system at a cost of billions. I'd take the investors any day over these.