The proposed citizenship changes

The Government published the General Scheme of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill on 21 September 2026. It is a proposal, not enacted law. The stated aims are stronger integration, confidence in the system and closer alignment with other EU countries. ^[1]

What would change

Longer residence: the ordinary route rises from five qualifying years to eight, including two continuous years immediately before applying.
Spouses of Irish citizens: qualifying residence and marriage or civil-partnership duration each rise from three years to five.
Language and civics: applicants must demonstrate a prescribed standard of English, Irish or Irish Sign Language, and knowledge of Irish civics.
Income and support: the ordinary route gains an income condition, restrictions on specified welfare and housing supports, a two-year lookback, and a debt condition. The Scheme does not add this test to the separate spouse route.
Conditions during the wait: ordinary-route applicants must continue meeting residence and specified conditions, including income, until the decision.
Fewer years count: temporary protection and specified unsuccessful EU-rights permissions are excluded. Further temporary permissions can be excluded by regulation. The exclusions also affect the parental residence calculation for children born after commencement.
Offences: specified immigration offences become a separate bar, with no time limit in the proposed wording.
Good character: the condition could no longer be waived in any circumstances, on any route, including for children aged 14 to 17.
Revocation: public policy, public order and national security become additional grounds, none of them defined. Consultation with the Committee of Inquiry’s chair is removed when setting procedural regulations.

These changes are set out in Heads 4–10. ^[2]

What nobody knows yet

Most of what would decide whether a person qualifies is not in the Scheme. It is left to regulations the Minister would make after the Bill is passed:

the minimum income, and which welfare payments and housing supports would count against an applicant;
the language level, how it would be tested, what it would cost and who would be exempt;
the civics syllabus and the pass mark;
any further temporary permissions that would stop counting as residence;
the procedure for inquiries into revocation.

There is no start date either. Each part would begin on a day set by ministerial order, and there is no transition rule for people part-way through the five years. Yet in September 2026 the Minister of State said the new residence periods are intended to apply from enactment of the Bill, so even the date that matters is unclear. The Minister of State also confirmed that the test methods and content had not been settled. ^[1] ^[2]

For someone four years into their residence, this means they cannot tell whether they will be able to apply next year, in four years’ time, or on conditions they have no way of checking yet.

What this means for Ireland

Ireland’s economy and public services depend on people recruited from abroad. Nearly half of the nurses and midwives in practice trained outside the EU, and 43.4% of doctors qualified outside Ireland. Non-Irish citizens account for roughly 43% to 65% of the net rise in the number of people in employment since 2021, depending on the base period (47% between the second quarters of 2021 and 2026; method). Many came through the State’s own permit system, and they are the people who now become citizens, with their partners and children. ^[3] ^[4] ^[5]

The Scheme would make their route longer and much less predictable. It does not say what problem an eight-year wait would solve, how many people the income test would exclude, or what the changes would do to recruitment and retention in health, social care, IT and pharmaceuticals. ^[2]

That uncertainty costs Ireland too. Germany, France and the Netherlands ask for five years, and a route to citizenship that nobody can calculate is a weak offer to the nurses, IT specialists and researchers Ireland is trying to attract. ^[6]

In my view, the Scheme should not go ahead until its case is made with Irish evidence and for Irish needs.

The chapters

Sources