New laws needed to deal with asylum seekers arriving into State from North, says Taoiseach

The Government will introduce primary legislation to deal with the large number of international protection applicants arriving into the State through the Border with Northern Ireland, Taoiseach Simon Harris has said.

Mr Harris agreed there were open or “porous” borders with the North and a Common Travel Area between Ireland and Britain, which meant people could freely travel between both jurisdictions. However, he said legislation was needed to address the situation where people came to Ireland seeking asylum when they had already had resident status in the UK.

Mr Harris was speaking outside Government Buildings after conferring State funding of €100 million to deliver more than 1,000 student accommodation beds in three universities.

He said Minister for Justice Helen McEntee would meet British home secretary James Cleverly next week to discuss a mutual approach to the issue. Ms McEntee told the Oireachtas Justice Committee this week that more than 80 per cent of asylum seekers were arriving into the State from the North.

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Mr Harris said he would address this challenge by trying to work for greater co-operation and collaboration between the Garda and the PSNI, as well as an approach at senior levels between both governments.

Ms McEntee was asked at the Justice Committee this week – and asked again in media interviews – why only three transfer agreements out of 188 were executed between Ireland and other EU countries under the Dublin III convention (where the first receiving country agrees to take an IP applicant back from the second country they travelled to, in this case Ireland). Independent TD Michael McNamara, who asked the question, said she was not able to provide an explanation.

Asked whether he had confidence in Ms McEntee because she had not yet fully explained how that situation arose, Mr Harris said he had full confidence in her and in her handling of the asylum issue.

He said the increase in numbers of people arriving from the UK presented a challenge to the Government. But he also defended the asylum processing system. “Am I happy the system is robust? I am. Do I believe the system could be better. Yes.”

He said Ms McEntee’s decision this week to fast-track asylum seekers from the country with the highest number of applicants would make a difference. More than 2,000 people from Nigeria (or 34 per cent of all applicants) have applied for asylum in Ireland in the first three months of 2024.

Mr Harris said he was disappointed to see some politicians call for the closing of borders, including those to the UK and Northern Ireland. “What we don’t need is right-wing Tory rhetoric,” he said.

He said the Government would need to change the law quickly to respond to the increase in applicants coming to Ireland from Britain and Northern Ireland. “We need to have a process in place that if somebody has status in another country, this case the United Kingdom, and comes here seeking for asylum, they should be returned to Britain. And so there will be a need for legislative change here.”

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