Hi
I appreciate your reply but the basic premise of my words is to try and ensure that individuals do research to make a valid and self protecting decision.

You may be coming off the register soon (good luck) but if your words make someone think its a way around and so conflicts with UK requirements then all I say is it worth it? What are the possible consequences?

We are all most reading this because we did not think about "consequences".

Society suggests I must let go of all my expectations but I disagree, as whilst I have a voice, I have hope.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope is for tomorrow else what is left if you remove a mans hope.
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This forum supports these words, thank you Unlock and your contributors.

Just a few points on this, apologies if it's been covered but it's late and I haven't read the entire thread.

I moved to Ireland while I was still on the British SOR and had a SOPO (I have neither now).

Due to how I moved around the world the British didn't know I landed in Ireland to live there. I chose to notify the Irish Garda (police) because I wanted to apply to have my SOPO removed, plus I knew if I got caught it'd be worse.

When I did notify them one of the first things they told me was they were surprised the UK police hadn't notified them, as they usually do.

The visits from the Irish equivalent of the PPU are a lot more intrusive. Yes someone has mentioned you don't need to let them in, but you will. Simply because if you don't they bang on your windows to get your attention, they knock on your neighbours doors and windows looking for you and they are not discreet.

They also get you to meet with TULSA, even if you have no kids and no interaction with them, and that's an unpleasant interaction.

Apart from the odd one, they are simply rude.

I am sure the UK police do normally notify of convictions but as my entry wasn't initially documented they did tell me for several months they were struggling to get the UK police to actually tell them what I'd done. Possibly this is why they were even harsher with me, I don't know.

I know when I was going through the SOPO removal process the UK police asked them to get me to do a lie detector. I know from my day in court that they'd refused that request.

Interestingly I was only on the SOR still in the UK because I had an indefinite SOPO at the time. During one visit as I was going through the process to have my SOPO removed I lost my temper with the Irish Garda during a visit (they used to visit really late, sometimes after midnight) and I told them I was going through the process to have my SOPO removed, but it wasn't valid outside of the UK, and it was the only reason I was still on the SOR in the UK and the equivalent length in Ireland I wouldn't still be in it and I threatened to seek legal action for harassment.
My next visit from them they informed me the UK police had finally told them my convictions and I would no longer be registered with them and I wouldn't get any more visits. So while that is totally anecdotal, they do seem to be be wary of not overstepping the law.

Long story short, yes while it seems like it's easier being a SO in Ireland, it's not pleasant. Plus throwing cost of living which has been high since years before COVID, lack of housing and decent jobs, it's not a walk in the park moving here. I was just just that I have a decent job here, or I wouldn't afford to live.

If anyone is planning on moving here, don't let me put you off, I just advise you take off the rose tinted glasses and do some proper research first.

One thing which I don't think has been discussed is the relative size of Ireland's population centres.  In the UK, all other things being equal, you can move to a new city, keep your head down and live a (relatively) normal life.  Even if you are not perfectly hidden, you can effectively get "lost in the crowd".  In Ireland on the other hand, in the majority of places a new face excites curiosity & discussion. Irish people do love to chat about anything and everything so good luck escaping their attention.  

"My concerns are more with the practicality of moving to Ireland."

I think we may be in denial as to the freakish impracticality of life on the register?
Being in jail was a massively impractical move on my part.

I can have an Irish girlfriend. I can't have a British girlfriend without second-guessing the attitudes of police etc.

Moving to Ireland is something normal Britons do. 

"then you run a constant risk of the police in UK or Garda becoming alert to your prescence."

You're not a fugitive in any of my proposed scenarios. Merely encountering the police doesn't get you put on Irish register, or if it does, Irish register's not so bad. You don't need to hide from police whenever you visit UK -- you can declare yourself in and out the UK just fine, or take as much or as little risk as you can muster. I just mean it's good not to have a permanent address in the UK where you're being poked and prodded.

"Also, isnt there a housing shortage in Ireland? Might be harder than you think to find somewhere. "

That's a "nice problem" though isn't it, it means it requires some patience. I'm just saying, for the benefit people reading this, Ireland should be a potential factor for anyone trying to eke out a tolerable existence while on the SOR. It has 3 interesting properties 1) Full residence and working rights for Britons, 2) No automatic registration 3) Saner less intrusive register. For a many a British person facing life on the register, I would have thought a permanent vacation in Ireland -- whatever the obsctacles -- looks like the more practical option than hanging about in Britain.

That's my main conclusion anyway, on the topic.

There is plenty in what you say. SHPOs are a burden and there is always the risk of being tripped up by an over zealous PPU inventing new conditions by reinterpreting the wording of the SHPO to make it more restrictive. The reason there are no Irish SO complaining on here, may well have something to do with the fact that SHPO or its equivalent are very rare in Ireland. In UK the courts are handing them out to everyone, irrespective of offence, irrespective of risk. The Irish system does appear to be more relaxed and they may well leave you alone, even if you are on the SOR.

My concerns are more with the practicality of moving to Ireland. If you have family in UK and did intend to hop back and forth, then you run a constant risk of the police in UK or Garda becoming alert to your prescence. The Irish register requires you to notify every time you leave the country for 3 days or more.

Also, isnt there a housing shortage in Ireland? Might be harder than you think to find somewhere. 

That's not me missing the point. That's the whole reason why Ireland is interesting as a concept, is that it's not very "away", and only very recently was part of the Kingdom. It's a way of being physically close to Britain while being legally distant.

"And I don't see why anyone who is trying to be a law-abiding citizen returning to their community would want to. "

Really? You can't see, for example, why a 25 year-old kid who just landed a lifetime on the British register wouldn't go off to live with his Auntie in County Cork and maybe build an online business -- visiting UK 2x a month? Able to be in UK too from time to time also but without dragging all that heat around with him?

This is not some furtive attitude speaking. This forum is full of people who would perhaps rather live as normal Irishmen -- or as Irish SOs -- than live as a British SOs. Well I'm telling you, you already have something bordering on full citizenship rights in Ireland, and no automatic registration, and a different sort of register anyway, less harsh. There's no opposite number to this forum anywhere saying "help I'm Irish", is there? There is a lot of anxiety in these forums about life on the register, people resigned to having their lives ruined, when I tell you my life was not in ruins when I was in Ireland.

There was zero heat on me in Ireland  -- and I say that not in the dodgy fugitive sense, I mean it would have taken a LOT of effort -- I would have had to bother the authorities quite a lot, in order to get myself told to go on the Irish Register.

It's not just "notification requirements and occasional police visits" is it?  We're not errand-phobic on this forum.  Being on the SOR changes everything. It's permanent risk of interference, a sword of Damacles. People on the register will know exactly what I mean. Even those who don't intend to reoffend ever, live their lives on a totally different psychological plane from other ex-cons. I have to think about what I'm browsing every day, not in case it's illegal, but if it's the Alizee music video "Moi Lolita", or I'm showing an excessive interest in East Asian countries, or whatever. Or maybe I have politics that the zeitgeist of the age registers as extreme, in the obtuse minds of the police? Whereas the ex-burglars or whatever can partner up with other human beings normally, eke out a life for themselves provided they don't trumpet their criminal record -- SOs are permanently vulnerable to being SHPOed on a whim, or pulled over for nothing with friends in the car, or having their employment or family actively interfered with etc. And we've covered elsewhere the whole travel restrictions stuff and entering the USA.

As for the risk involved -- done properly I just don't see the risk. You're free to fall in love with an Irish girl on holiday and stay there. The Western Hemisphere just doesn't function like that -- jailing you for failing a register nobody told you existed in the first place.

The devil's in the detail yes -- some young men can go live with their auntie in County Cork and never feel the heat of the law ever again, others have thicker ties --  but lightening this burden is a permanent theme of these forums, and continuing this theme, I don't understand why more people don't walk out from under the burden. But the point of Ireland -- as opposed to Germany for example, is that is only a medium-sized upheaval. It is not far from family or friends (15 euros away every weekend if need be). And you're allowed to live there permanently. If I had a friend who was on the register for life, who I truly believed didn't deserve it, I'd say move to Ireland and smile.

Hence my original point. With all this agonising over legalities that goes on in this forum, I don't understand why there isn't more talk about just walking out from under the legalities. And if you thought the legalities were perfectly proper, you wouldn't be agonising over them in quite this way.

This isn't world's smallest violin playing just for the SOs. Lightening the burden is already the pet topic of SOs here. I'm just saying there is a large swath of the British isles where the burden doesn't exist -- not in the same way, and possibly not at all.

I think people are missing the fundamental points in all of this...

Do people really want to run away from their home country, to get away from the 'intrusion' that is notification requirements and occasional police visits? Uproot your life, leave any family/friends that did stick by you behind, leave everything you know behind, all to avoid having to pop to the police station once or twice a year to update some details, a process that should take less than an hour per year (0.01% of your life), or to avoid having the police pop to your house twice a year and ask some uncomfortable questions? 

There is no 'legal' way to do this, as has been described within the thread. If somebody wants to 'run away' (ie without notifying UK authorities) to Ireland and then try to claim ignorance of Irish law to justify why they didn't notify authorities there, then that's an option (that I wouldn't recommend), but I don't think we should be pretending that this is likely to lead to anything other than further legal trouble, or, at the very least, a complicated and prolonged legal headache. And even if they did it 'correctly' from a UK perspective, and notified authorities here, why would they then want to go to Ireland and not notify, unless that is for some nefarious reason? Think about this clearly too. Would somebody really want to be seen as a 'sex offender' that is 'running away' from notification requirements? This is only likely to lead to further stigmatisation (and investigation), not just of themselves, but of anybody in a similar situation who might in the future want to do any kind of travelling. I appreciate that oftentimes people can be selfish and can only think of what they want in the moment and how to make their situation better. Sometimes, as some of us will know from our own experiences, that can be what leads to offending in the first place. But these are the kind of generally bad, ill-thought out ideas that lead to extra regulations being implemented on everybody, to cover off the 'bright ideas' of a few.

The Irish law is quite clear that their Notification Requirements apply to people convicted of qualifying offences in other States. Whilst there is a defence for somebody to show that the offence they were convicted of elsewhere is not an offence in Irish law, there is, as far as I can see, no defence of "sorry gov, didn't know". It would also be a bit hard to argue this if somebody had indeed left the UK failing to notify in line with... notification requirements: Revised Acts | Law Reform

In addition to this, the most obvious thing is that somebody would be spending that portion of your life, 'safe' from notification requirements in Ireland, but still inevitably looking over their shoulder and waiting for the day it all catches up with them. Which will probably be the day after they land themselves a top job in Ireland having potentially committed further offences of fraud etc by not disclosing their conviction for the role, just as one possible example. See where this goes?

And if they have complied with the UK notification requirements in doing this, if they don't give a return date, expect the UK authorities to alert the Irish when they notice they're still not back in six months, and if they did give a return date but fail to return, expect the UK authorities to issue an arrest warrant. 

I just don't see what 'benefit' is to be gained by doing this. And I don't see why anyone who is trying to be a law-abiding citizen returning to their community would want to. 

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All views, opinions & contributions are my own and do not represent the views of Unlock unless specifically stated.

There are quite a few differences between the UK register and the Irish one. So it does appear to be less draconian.

1. There are PPU/MOSOVO or equivalent in both countries. Home visits are routine in UK. In Ireland there is provision for visits but no ability to force entry into your home like in the UK, so you can refuse to let them in.
2. Both countries require annual notification of name and address. There is no requirement to notify bank details in Ireland. Both countries require notification of foreign travel.
3. Ireland does have civil orders, which work like the UK SHPOs, but they are far less common than in the UK.  An SHPO from the UK would not be enforceable in Ireland, so they would have to apply for their own version through the Irish courts.

Also worth saying the numbers on the Irish register are a lot smaller than in UK, even taking into account the smaller population.
Ireland has 5 million people and about 2,000 are on the register. UK has 60 million people and about 80,000 are on the register across England, Scotland and Wales.

If someone on the SOR in UK tells the police they are travelling to Ireland, then the police have the same options for notifying this via Interpol as they do for any other country. But with it being a low risk country, it is probably unlikely they would notify the Garda, unless the person was considered high risk. However once the Garda are notified, they will visit the person and tell them all about the SOR and what the rules are. https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2021-05-25/500/

So in summary, you probably could sneak into the country and go under the radar, especially if you are considered low risk by the UK police.

Yyyees but at no point did you mention a juncture at which I'm informed the Irish register exists let alone told to go on it. That's my core point. I'm British. You're Irish -- by birth or otherwise -- maybe it featured in your civics class or citizenship test -- but I assure you to a purely British mind, the existence of the Irish sex register is a piece of arcane wisdom indeed. 

I was physically in Ireland last month, as a 2nd undeclared port of call, working for my British company, from a hotel, officially unaware of any Irish register. If I was on the British Register permanently for life (I'm off it next month so no worries), I would have just stayed in Ireland until someone made me register. That's basically my point. I don't know why more people don't continue where I left off.

So yes do your own research people but also do your own thinking, and research procedures and practices, not just laws.

Add to that the possibility that the Irish Register might be less draconian that the British -- or the possibility that being on the Irish Register might take the heat off of your British life -- I thought that might at least be a discussion, the moving parts presented by Ireland. 

Hi
I have dual irish british citizenship and looked into this a couple of years back and from memory it is not exactly as you say I am afriad.
First the Irish authorities would know as you would have to declare to your OM you was leaving the country, who would possibly inform them 
You are probably going to have to become / apply to become legal to work etc and then required to notify them and yes they do have a SOR

I do not think many things have changed since I last looked but please anyone thinking do your own investigation as the consequences are not worth any risk.

Society suggests I must let go of all my expectations but I disagree, as whilst I have a voice, I have hope.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope is for tomorrow else what is left if you remove a mans hope.
------------------------------

This forum supports these words, thank you Unlock and your contributors.