Take action
Take action
Sign the petition
Started on 28 August by Manavi Purohit, a Dublin immigration adviser. 11,897 people have signed, and it is still gaining several hundred a day. Add your name.
change.org →Make a submission
The Joint Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration can invite the public to comment on the Scheme. When it does, tell them. We will post the link here.
Public consultations →Write to your TDs
Two letters ready to go: one if this affects you, one if you are an Irish citizen who thinks it is wrong. Fill in, sign, send.36
Fill in the letter → Find your TDs →Back the organisations
Doras, Immigrant Council, ICCL, Irish Refugee Council, MRCI, Nasc, AkiDwA. They are doing the heavy lifting.
Who else is on this ↓Send us what your TD said
A reply tells us who is listening, who is sending the party line, and who is worth a second letter. With weeks to go before scrutiny, that is the difference between writing to fourteen people and writing to the right ones. Forward the TD’s reply only, and delete your own letter underneath it first.
keepitfive@proton.me →Who to write to first
Joint Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration
Pre-legislative scrutiny happens in this room, and it happens before the text of the Bill is finalised. The committee reads the General Scheme, can call officials and experts in to answer for it, and publishes a report recommending changes.67 These fourteen are the people who can get a transitional provision written in while the Bill is still being drafted. Write to them as well as to your own TDs.
Nine TDs and five Senators. The Oireachtas membership page opens on the select committee, which is the nine Deputies on their own; considering a General Scheme is a joint committee job, so the Senators sit on this one too.68 Address them as Senator, not Deputy.
Nine TDs
Five Senators
Find your TDs
Find the people who can actually change this.
All 174 TDs, with the email and phone number from their Oireachtas page.37 Pick your county, tick your TDs, and the letter below is addressed to them for you.
Not sure? Who are my TDs (Electoral Commission) finds them from your Eircode, checktheregister.ie tells you your constituency, and the full list is on oireachtas.ie. We have flagged Ministers and members of the Joint Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration: they are the ones who can move this.
Choose a county to see your TDs.
Write to your TD
Your letter. Two minutes.
Nick created these templates and let us share them. Choose one depending on your circumstances. Fill in the fields. Copy and paste into your email. You can further customise there, if you choose. Nothing you type is stored here. Send one letter per TD, with their name on it. It lands better than a group email.
Nothing you type into this letter is stored. Your county, your TDs, your name in the letter: none of it leaves your browser. No cookies, no accounts, no tracking of who you are. We only count how many people used each button. The two forms at the end of the page are the one exception, and they hold only what you deliberately send.
Sign
Three petitions are open right now
Two of them ask for exactly what this page asks for: that the people already here keep the rules they came under. The third is Labour’s campaign on what migrants contribute. Each takes a minute.
Petition
Against increasing Irish citizenship from 5 to 8 years
Started 28 August by Manavi Purohit. 11,897 signatures by 14 September, still climbing by several hundred a day.
Sign it →
Petition
Protect the 5-year pathway for people already living in Ireland
Rachel Zhou’s petition, addressed to the Minister and to the Justice Committee, asking for exactly one thing: that the people already here keep the rules they came under. 2,172 signatures by 14 September.
my.uplift.ie →
Petition
Together We Thrive
Labour’s campaign on what migrants contribute here, with a petition to add your name to. Its justice spokesperson has asked the Minister to drop the eight-year rule outright.
labour.ie →
Talk to us
Two ways to reach the people keeping this page
Do you want to support this page?
A correction, a source we missed, an offer of help, or anything else worth saying. It lands in one inbox and goes no further.
Message us →Do you want your story on this page?
Eight years lands on people with plans already made. Say what it changes for you. Nothing is published without asking you first.
Tell your story →