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Irish Justice Minister Helen McEntee. File photo by Wikicommons
FOR the last week, the Irish and UK governments have been embroiled in grandstanding over immigration, sparked by claims by the Republic’s Minister for Justice that more than 80% of people seeking asylum in the state had come via the land border with Northern Ireland.
Following Minister Helen McEntee’s claims, the Irish government has agreed to introduce emergency legislation to send refugees back to the UK.
But British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he was “not interested” in accepting any refugees back.
It’s worth noting both politicians are facing general elections next year and are already ramping up their campaigns.
Despite all the rows, no data has been presented to back up Ms McEntee’s initial claims.
She said last month: “Information on how a person enters the country when not through a designated port, including by travelling over the land border, is not recorded”.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin said this week that the 80% claim was “not statistical, it’s not a database or evidence base – but it is very clear from the presentations of migrants that there’s a change in the nature of where migrants have come from…”
He also claimed that the British Government’s much-condemned policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda was pushing some people “to get sanctuary here (in the Republic) and within the European Union, as opposed to the potential of being deported to Rwanda”.
But again, no data has been offered to back up this claim.
The Department of Justice told The Detail that its “firm assessment, based on the experience of staff and others working in the field, and based on the material gathered at interviews, is that in most cases those applying for the first time in the IPO (International Protection Office in Dublin city centre) have entered over the land border”.
The “firm assessment” seems to assume that all asylum seekers who apply at the IPO are travelling over the border.
However, asylum seekers who arrive in the Republic via airports and ports don’t always register with immigration officials at the time and later apply for asylum at the IPO.
The Irish justice ministry said that 91% of asylum seekers - 6,136 of a total of 6,739 - who applied for protection this year - did so at the IPO.
But this figure is not dramatically different from previous years.
Statistics from 2021 show around 80% of asylum seekers registered at the IPO.
Although figures have gone up and down, they were still as high as 75% in 2017.
And as the Irish government’s own figures show, last year a third of all asylum seekers (4,700 people) arrived via Dublin Airport.
Therefore, Ms McEntee’s claim would represent a huge change in migration patterns.
47 cross-border buses were stopped for immigration check in one month this year. Picture courtesy of End Deportations Belfast
The diplomatic spat has not taken into account that, for years, both countries sent asylum seekers back to each other under EU law.
Even after Brexit, the Irish and UK governments agreed that the Republic could continue to send asylum seekers back to the UK.
However, in March last year, the Irish High Court quashed that agreement on a technicality.
Proposals to send gardaí to enforce immigration checks at the border also ignore the fact that such checks are a long-standing practice.
In February this year alone, 47 buses travelling to Dublin were stopped by immigration officials. Of 25 people who were found to be in the Republic without authorisation, all were returned to the UK.
The number of people seeking asylum in the Republic has increased, from more than 4,700 people in 2019, to around 13,200 in 2023. But this is part of a wider trend across the European Union.
Last year, there was an 18% increase in asylum applications across the EU compared to 2022. However both the UK and Republic received significantly fewer applications than countries including Italy, France and Germany.
At the same time, the Republic has welcomed 100,000 Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion.
Over the last year, the Republic has seen a wave of anti-migrant protests and attacks on asylum seeker accommodation, fuelled by far-right agitators spreading fear and disinformation.
Fiona Hurley, chief executive of the refugee charity Nasc Ireland, told The Detail that politicians need to remember they are dealing with the lives of thousands of people seeking a new home.
“We are really concerned when we're having conversations about immigration that we need to make sure we're doing so from a very factual and grounded perspective,” she said.
She added: “We can't play politics with people's lives.”