Two senior members of one of Ireland’s biggest language schools are under threat of deportation after they were separately found by the Department of Justice to have obtained residency based on sham marriages.

Tiago Mascarenhas, a director and co-founder of Seda College in Capel Street, Dublin, and Saiful Islam, the college head of payroll, were found to have obtained residency rights as a result of sham marriages in 2011. Non-EU citizens can obtain the right to reside in an EU country based on a marriage to an EU citizen, but gardai working on Operation Vantage have cracked down on sham marriages in recent years. The two men’s dealings with authorities are detailed in separate High Court challenges taken by the Seda language school managers. In