By Stersco83 - 26 May 26 4:16 PM
- No UK register obligations
- British-like culture, intertwined with British economy. London-linked work from home opportunities exist. Dublin is like an extremely chill version of London.
- Slightly diminished Google Effect (UK stories don't cling to the top of Google the same way , I find)
- Clean criminal record by default (ok if you say you're a British citizen they may ask for the British record but there's a chance they may not or may forget)
- Convenient port of call for spontaneous unnotified onward travel (e.g. USA), which after many months there is not narratively suspicious in the eyes of UK police, and if it is, who cares - you're in Ireland?.
- Can slip in and out the UK potentially without notification, although you'd be breaching the law if more than 3 days
- Within easy reach of all you hold dear. Even your own British family will not feel too abandoned by your move to Ireland.
- It's a comprehensive, civilised nation state, not a weird colony.
Moreover....- Vote
- Draw benefits and pensions
- Live there indefinitely
Granted..- They allegedly have their own SOR which they expect permanent foreign residents to sign up to, but do you really need to announce this? Just by hanging around Ireland longer than usual? Also it's a very threadbare thing, not like the British one.
It's what I'd be doing right now if I was on the SOR for life. A little cottage near the border.
Whenever I read all these stories along the lines "oh well my work coach this or that, my PPU will eventually let me do this or that" -- I just keep thinking "good God please just get out from under it, do yourself a favour, go live with your uncle in Spain, anything". Of course we don't all have uncles in Spain, but we do have Ireland.
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By Evan Davis - 11 Jun 26 2:13 PM
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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