Who is Marina Sologub, the Irish woman whose Australian visa has been cancelled?

Marina Sologub is not a name that would have been known to many in Ireland before last weekend. Since then, news of the 39-year-old Irish woman’s “exceptional talent” visa being cancelled in Australia, on national security grounds, has thrust her into the limelight.

The story emerged last Friday in the Sydney Morning Herald, which reported that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) – which works to protect against “acts of foreign interference”, espionage and terrorism – had deemed Sologub a potential security risk.

Such a conclusion can be arrived at by national security authorities who believe there is potential for a person to be used or manipulated by another, usually unfriendly, country either directly or indirectly.

No information has emerged in Australia or Ireland explaining precisely why Sologub’s presence in Australia was suddenly judged a potential security risk. She has been convicted of no crime and no charges have been brought against her.

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However, the decision to cancel her visa, thus forcing her out of Australia, comes amid the authorities there quietly cancelling the visas of people they suspect are linked to the Russian state and working against Australian interests.

Sologub, a Kazakhstan-born ethnic Russian and Russian speaker, appears to have moved to Ireland as a child and spent part of her formative years in Cork. However, she was living in Co Westmeath by the time she did her Leaving Certificate, with members of her immediate and extended family also living there having first settled in the State decades ago.

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[ Irish citizen of Russian origin has Australian visa cancelled on security grounds ]

Her CV paints a picture of a woman dedicated to her career and who had relentlessly progressed to the point she was regarded worthy of a “distinguished talent” visa by the South Australian government in September 2020. She secured that visa – to work in the space industry in Adelaide – because of her experience in the sector in Ireland and having also worked for a period in Dáil Éireann.

The Irish National Space Centre, where Sologub worked previously, and the Houses of the Oireachtas have refused to comment on the case. The Garda has also declined to comment on any individual case or any matter relating to security.

However, Garda sources said the force had contacted the Australian authorities seeking more information about why the visa was cancelled.

Having completed her Leaving Cert in 2003 in Castlepollard Community College, Sologub went on to study for a diploma in international trade and e-business at the Institute of International Trade of Ireland in Dublin between 2003 and 2006, which overlapped with her completing a certificate in business studies at Cork College of FET between 2005 and 2007. Between 2007 and 2011, she studied for a BSc in government and politics at University College Cork.

During the latter years of her studies, Sologub began gaining work experience, initially in the Longford-Westmeath constituency office of former Labour TD Willie Penrose. She says she worked there for periods in 2008 and 2009 before gaining a six-month intern post in the office of Bernard Allen TD, who at the time was chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.

The first full-time position Sologub gained was at the National Space Centre near Midleton in Cork. It is a ground station with Europe’s most western teleport, which links satellites to ground-based communications systems. Sologub says she worked there as head of business development for six years to the summer of 2017.

During that time, she claims, she “developed strategic business opportunities and enhanced relationships with four Fortune Global 500 companies” and developed a “database of qualified leads” by establishing contacts in four continents.

She also says she drove increased profitability at the centre and established the “Irish Space Industry Group through the amalgamation of all 15 Irish space cluster companies”. She also says she worked for Enterprise Ireland in developing an “Irish space policy document”.

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Her CV says she then moved on to Ervia in Co Cork, working for the company for just over two years before going to Australia. In that role, she says, she was “responsible for the development of contracts to support the Gas Networks Ireland growth strategy and the Irish Water capital investment programme”.

In September 2020, after her application for a “distinguished talent” visa was approved by the South Australia authorities, she relocated to Adelaide and lists herself as having worked as a freelance business development executive for 3½ years to February 2021.

On arrival in Adelaide, she initially worked for four months at SpaceSpecialists Ltd which has provided “freelance consulting, recruitment, training and talks” to the Australian Space Agency.

Between March and September 2021, she worked as a manager in the space sector for Deloitte. In that role, she says, she “supported the development of lunar ascent operations, first Australian mission to the moon”. Her final posting before her visa was cancelled, starting in September 2021, was as a procurement adviser to the City of Marion, an electoral area in the Adelaide region.