knowledge 4 June 2026 |

Navigating Ireland’s FDI Screening Regime: Lessons from the 2025 Annual Report

Introduction

On 26 May 2026, the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (the “Department”) published the 2025 Annual Report (the “Report”) in accordance with the Screening of Third Country Transactions Act 2023 (the “2023 Act”).  A detailed outline of the regime’s notification thresholds and other features can be found in our earlier briefing: Irish Foreign Investment Screening Regime: The Screening of Third Country Transactions Act 2023.

The 2023 Act came into force on 6 January 2025, and the Report provides an overview of the operation of Ireland’s foreign investment screening regime during its first year in force. The Report covers key trends in the operation of the regime, summarising data on notifications received, screening decisions taken, and identifying the main sectors involved. We consider the key trends in the Report below. In parallel, the Department also published a revised version of the Inward Investment Screening Guidance for Stakeholders and Investors, which aims to assist parties to transactions with interpreting the mandatory notification requirements under the 2023 Act.

Background

The 2023 Act gave effect to Regulation (EU) 2019/452 (the “EU FDI Regulation”), introducing a mandatory notification regime whereby parties are required to notify qualifying foreign acquisitions of Irish targets (whether assets or undertakings) active in particular sensitive sectors to the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (the “Minister”). The Minister also retains a wide discretionary power to “call in” transactions for review, even where they fall outside the mandatory notification requirements.

Key points

Notifications

The Report notes that a total of 102 notifications were submitted to the Department in 2025:

•  66 were not formally screened as they were found not to have met all of the criteria for mandatory notification;
• 1 was deemed incomplete and rejected;
• 1 was withdrawn by the notifying party;
• 8 remained under assessment at the end of 2025; and
• 26 screening notices were issued, meaning there were 26 notifications that proceeded to a screening review.

Two transactions were approved subject to conditions - in both instances, the conditions required maintenance of contractual arrangements concerning the delivery of critical services by the target undertaking. No transactions were prohibited.   

Sectors

The vast majority of transactions which were screened related to critical infrastructure which accounted for 18 of the 26 transactions. The remaining transactions related to critical technologies and dual-use items, supply of critical inputs and access to sensitive information. The main sectors involved were energy, telecommunications, ICT, health and pharmaceuticals. Investments originating from the US and UK constituted the largest proportion of screened transactions by far, accounting for 19 of the investments screened.

The Minister’s ‘call-in’ power to screen transactions applies in circumstances where the Minister has grounds to believe they pose a risk to security or public order, or where the transaction met the criteria and should have been notified but was not. No transactions were screened under the call-in mechanism in 2025.

Timeframe for assessing notifications

The Department aims to complete initial assessments and issue/decline to issue a screening notice within 10 calendar days of receipt of the notification. The average duration of the initial assessment was 9.76 days, and two thirds of notifications were assessed within 10 calendar days. However, the Report outlines a range of 0-47 days for this initial assessment, indicating that this first step can take some time. As the statutory review only starts to run from the issuing of the screening notice, this is something to keep in mind when planning transaction timetables.

From the issuing of the screening notice, the Act allows the Minister 90 calendar days to complete the screening process, with provision to extend this to 135 days where necessary. The Report has confirmed the actual timeframes achieved by the Department. The average review was 40.5 days, ranging from 27 to 85 days. In approximately two thirds of cases, decisions were issued in less than 40 calendar days

Timeframes
Initial Assessment (Screening Notice/No Screening Notice)
Average	9.76 days
Range	0 – 47 days
Two-thirds of notifications	< 10 days
Screening Review
Average	40.5 days
Range	27 – 85 days
Two-thirds of notifications	< 40 days

 

The Minister can issue a request for information at any time during the initial assessment or during screening. The Report indicates that the majority of those requests related to the activities of the target company, but information requested extended to the investor’s operations, end-users, alternative providers, the sensitivity and security of data, export control compliance, involvement in EU programmes, ownership structures, financials and supply chains.

Cooperation

The EU FDI Regulation sets out a formal cooperation mechanism between Member States, designed to support coordinated decision-making while leaving the final decision in the hands of the Member States reviewing the transaction. The Annual Report sets out some interesting statistics on the notifications that involved cooperation between the Department and other Member States and the European Commission:

 (a) The Department assessed 74 notifications shared by other Member States where the transaction had an Irish nexus, for example where the target carried out business in Ireland. In two cases, the Department requested further information, but it did not submit any formal comments.

 (b) The Department shared 23 notifications with the European Commission and other Member States under the cooperation mechanism. Additional information was sought by the European Commission on two occasions and by other Member States on three occasions. However, no official comments or opinions were received.

Revision of the EU FDI Regulation

The Report also refers to the recent political agreement on the revision of the EU FDI Regulation. The European Parliament approved the draft of the new legislation on 19 May 2026. It is expected to enter into force 18 months after receiving approval from the Council of the EU. The Commission first indicated that it intended to revise the EU FDI Regulation in 2023, which we reported on in our earlier briefing: Expected revision of the EU's FDI Screening Regulation. The proposed new regulation will introduce a common minimum level of harmonisation across the EU, requiring for example mandatory screening mechanisms in all Member States, a common minimum sectoral scope, more harmonised deadlines, and screening of intra-EU investments where the investor is ultimately owned or controlled by individuals or entities from non-EU countries.

 

Also contributed to by Daniel O'Leary