Nearly 63,000 people were refused visas for travel to Ireland over the past two years, with citizens of some countries facing rejection rates of over 90 percent.<\/p>\n
More than 321,000 visa applications were granted in 2024 and 2025, according to figures released by the Department of Justice.<\/p>\n
In 2025, visa decisions were made concerning 72,137 people from India, with 92.4 percent of all applications granted.<\/p>\n
At the other extreme, people from Burundi had a less than one-in-twelve chance of being allowed to travel to Ireland.<\/p>\n
Of the 136 decisions made on applications from the small East African country, only 8.1 percent of people \u2013 11 in total \u2013 were granted visas.<\/p>\n
Overall, there were more than 205,000 applications made to the State last year for business, work, or leisure, with decisions made in around 195,000 cases.<\/p>\n
The visa was approved in 161,084 cases while 34,089 applications were rejected \u2013 a success rate of 82.5 percent.<\/p>\n
Internal documentation also details “tips for processing visas”<\/p>\n
The Department of Justice had originally refused to release the information saying it would have an adverse effect on immigration controls.<\/p>\n
The data, which provides a country-by-country breakdown of decisions, was only released following an appeal to the Information Commissioner under FOI laws.<\/p>\n
Internal documentation also details “tips for processing visas” and things to watch out for when processing applications.<\/p>\n
It said officials should be on alert for passports that were tampered with and cases where an individual had ever overstayed a visa previously.<\/p>\n
They were also told to watch out for replacement passports, which could be used to conceal travel history.
“[They] are often obtained to hide previous visa refusals,” said the guidance document.<\/p>\n
Officials were also told to “trust your instincts” and “don’t be afraid to make a decision.”<\/p>\n
Another warning concerned large cash sums being placed in bank accounts shortly before planned travel.<\/p>\n
Instead, visa officers were told to look for six months of bank statements as well as payslip evidence from applicants.<\/p>\n
The guidance also said applications could be granted for “exceptional circumstances [or] compassionate grounds” even when other criteria were not met.<\/p>\n
One piece of advice said officials should be objective in their use of language.<\/p>\n
“Anything you write on an application can be seen by the applicant or their legal representative under Freedom of Information or through the legal process of judicial review,” it said.<\/p>\n
Internal manuals also detail assessments on the likelihood of a person overstaying their visa, breaching the Common Travel Area with the UK, or becoming a burden on the State.<\/p>\n
Travel history, financial stability, and previous immigration compliance are all listed as key factors when deciding whether permission should be granted.<\/p>\n
Highest failure rates for visas tend to be African countries<\/p>\n
An analysis of the Department of Justice data shows the highest failure rates for visas tended to be African countries.<\/p>\n
The lowest rate was for Burundi (8.1 percent), with a similarly low figure applying to applications from Cameroon (9 percent).<\/p>\n
Citizens of Togo had only a 16.9 percent chance of being granted a visa, while people from Gambia were successful in 28.6 percent of cases.<\/p>\n
Of the ten lowest rates of approval, all were African states, including Guinea, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Algeria, Djibouti, and Malawi.<\/p>\n
Some countries had a 100 percent success rate although this was based on a small number of applications from Bhutan, Montenegro, and Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n
The figures also showed that 94.5 percent of applications from Russia were granted compared to 74 percent from the Palestinian National Authority.<\/p>\n
Of the 16,511 applications from China finalised last year, nearly 95 percent were approved.<\/p>\n
Other countries with a high volume of people seeking visas for travel or work included South Africa, with 12,500 cases dealt with, of which 93.1 percent were granted.<\/p>\n
There were a further 13,662 requests for visas from citizens of Pakistan, but the approval rate there was less than 53 percent.<\/p>\n
The Department of Justice also said there were 245 visa decisions in cases involving ‘stateless\u2019 people \u2013 of which 86.9 percent were granted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 63,000 people were refused visas for travel to Ireland over the past two years, with citizens of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-299342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}