Investment-screening uncertainty – department
The official in charge of Ireland’s investment-screening regime has said that the Government is seeing only one-third to half of the volume that had been suggested by legal practitioners as the potential number of notifications under the system.
Anne Barrett (director of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment’s Inward Investment Unit) was speaking at the recent annual conference of the Law Society’s Business Law Committee (5 November).
National security
Legislation on the screening of non-EU investments into Ireland came into force in January, giving the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the power to review particular types of foreign investment in infrastructure and other key sectors, and to block or modify them on the grounds of national security.
Speaking to Philip Andrews SC about how the department was operating the regime so far, Barrett said that she expected around 100 to 200 notifications under the system in the first year – far fewer than the 300 to 400 that some experts had estimated.
Detailed figures will be published in an annual report in the first quarter of 2026.
Precautionary filings
Around 75% of those notified involved direct transactions, while the remaining 25% were indirect: investments by non-EU entities using an EU- or Swiss-incorporated vehicle.
She told the event that around two-thirds of deals were not notifiable under the regime, and most were precautionary filings – many from investors based in Britain or the US.
Asked if this suggested that there was some uncertainty about the thresholds and categories of deal covered by the regime, Barrett acknowledged that there was “absolutely some uncertainty around the categories”, citing as an example the definition of ‘critical infrastructure’.
Critical infrastructure
The department official pointed out that competition concerns were not the focus of the screening regime; the focus was mainly on the target company and whether a deal involved access to a piece of critical infrastructure.
“What we're very interested in is transactions where someone has access to that infrastructure. They may not necessarily directly own the infrastructure but, if they are in as an engineering firm providing support, it is whether they have access to that kind of infrastructure,” she stated.
When submitting notifications, practitioners were urged to consider the critical nature of the Irish-based target firm – including where it would sit within the larger company after a deal.
The event also heard that the department planned to issue updated guidelines on the regime in early 2026.
The department official told the conference that there were currently negotiations on a new screening regime at EU level.
She said that Ireland wanted clearer definitions about what type of deals were covered – including how deals involving AI tools would be treated.
Barrett warned, however, that there was a balance needed to ensure that clearer definitions did not introduce the risk of missing some important deals in key areas.
Mitigations
Barrett said that the department was currently providing initial determinations on whether a deal was notifiable or not within five to six days – ahead of its internal target of ten days.
Of the very low number of cases notified so far, where mitigating measures were considered, most were linked to contractual commitments.
These mainly related to issues concerning the continuity of supply of a product or service from an Irish-based company.
Barrett said that there was no legislative basis on which to publish decisions involving mitigation at the moment, but it was something that the unit would keep under consideration.
Under the legislation, the department can ‘call in’ deals not covered by the various categories and thresholds.
Barrett said that the department had not yet used this power.
In response to a question about whether smaller deals could slip under the radar, she told the conference that the department would be looking at patterns, whereby an investor attempted to capture a large slice of a sector through several smaller deals.