Tánaiste Micheál Martin has challenged a statement made by Helen McEntee, Minister for Justice, suggesting that over 80% of asylum seekers in Ireland enter through the Northern Ireland land border from the UK, arguing that it isn’t supported by concrete statistics, facts or data.
This claim was presented by Ms McEntee to the Oireachtas justice committee the previous Tuesday. However, the given percentage has been contested by numerous bodies such as the Irish Refugee Council since.
Mr Martin pointed out that the Justice Department has perceived an elevation in the influx via Northern Ireland, although this is not verified by specific statistics.
In spite of the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s indifference towards striking a deal with Ireland concerning the repatriation of asylum seekers to the UK, Mr Martin, during the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference in London, expressed that the apparent shift was more of an impression gathered from migrant stories rather than being data-driven.
He said the Justice officials feel that it is quite evident that there’s a deviation in the geographic origins of the migrants and that’s their understanding of the situation.
According to their perspectives, over the last year or two there has been a transformation. The emphasis initially was on individuals arriving undocumented on flights. However, that scenario seems to have somewhat decreased recently, in favour of a different migration trend.
Taoiseach Simon Harris corroborated Ms McEntee’s figures on Friday, basing them on the registrations done at the International Protection Office on Mount Street.
Nonetheless, Nick Henderson, the CEO of the Irish Refugee Council, countered this by stating that the absence of an asylum application at an airport or port doesn’t inherently mean that the individual has entered via the Northern Ireland border.
He further stated that an individual could clear immigration controls and then file an application for asylum at the International Protection Office.
The UK administration has expressed astonishment at the swift action by the Irish Government this week, which proposed a legislation allowing the repatriation to the UK of asylum seekers entering the nation through the Northern border. Northern Ireland’s Secretary of State, Chris Heaton-Harris, hopes that the forthcoming Irish bill, due at the Cabinet on Tuesday, is purely aimed at rectifying a minor snag in Ireland’s immigration law which surfaced following the High Court’s decision last month to stop repatriations to the UK due to its stringent new expulsion policy for Rwanda. Heaton-Harris indicated that the UK government may resist if the proposed Irish law extended beyond this.
The comments were made during an occasionally strained press briefing in London on Monday afternoon, where Heaton-Harris was joined by the Tánaiste. This followed a regular meeting between the two under the British Irish Intergovernmental Conference (BIIGC) component of the Belfast Agreement.
There had been plans for Ms McEntee to be present at the BIIGC meeting, however she withdrew late last night after a meeting with UK Home Secretary James Cleverly was cancelled by the UK government. This cancellation seemingly highlighted deepening rifts between the two nations over a surge in asylum applications in Ireland from refugees escaping from the UK.
Earlier on, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated that the UK would not accept the return of any asylum seekers who had initially sought international protection in the UK before moving to the Republic. This firm stance seemed to directly contravene consistent assertions by Mr Martin that a pre-existing bilateral agreement exists settling this issue.
Heaton-Harris, standing next to the Tánaiste, denied that the UK government’s refusal to accept the return of asylum seekers from the Republic represented a one-sided threat to renege on the agreement Mr Martin had mentioned just moments before. He ruled this out emphatically and dismissed accusations of the UK violating an international treaty.
Frequently, Heaton-Harris associated the matter of refugees crossing the border with the Common Travel Area (CTA) which has been in place between Ireland and the UK for a century since Ireland became independent. He conceded both governments’ responsibility to prevent potential exploitation of the CTA, permitting asylum seekers to go from the UK to the North without inspection of documents and hence gaining easy access to the Republic.
Mr. Martin informed the public that the broad subject of migration, including the return policy, was addressed in a confidential agreement between the UK and Irish administrations, which was finalised post-Brexit. He cited this agreement multiple times during the BIIGC news briefing.
Furthermore, the Tánaiste dismissed any suggestion of a government ‘cold shoulder’ towards the UK in the decision made by Ms. McEntee not to participate in the BIIGC. The Justice Department conveyed that she remained in Dublin for official meetings, despite several senior members of her department heading to London for the BIIGC.
Mr. Heaton-Harris affirmed that the British government has no intention to disrupt its relationship with Ireland. He stressed, however, that establishing their deportation procedure with Rwanda was a top concern for the UK. This move is seen as a strategy to deter migrants from attempting to enter Britain using small vessels, an issue that the Tory administration has pledged to address. There was additional coverage from PA.