The Minister for Finance has said Ireland will address its concerns at political and diplomatic level with the British government following yesterday’s High Court judgment in Belfast relating to Rwanda flights.
Mr Justice Humphreys also said aspects of the Act were incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The post-Brexit Windsor Framework jointly agreed by the UK and EU includes a stipulation that there can be no diminution of the rights provisions contained within Northern Ireland’s Good Friday peace agreement of 1998.
The Illegal Migration Act provides new powers for the Government to detain and remove asylum seekers it deems to have arrived illegally in the UK. Central to the new laws is the scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Speaking in Brussels, Minister MIchael McGrath said the judgment would affect an already “very difficult and a very challenging situation,” and that the Irish Government had no control over the judgment.
He said: “This is a very new judgment and it’s one that will be carefully considered by the Irish Government. I anticipate there will be contact very shortly at a political and diplomatic level in relation to it.
“It is, of course, subject to an appeal, so the judicial process has not concluded and there may well be further steps in the process yet.”
He added: “Anything that results in Northern Ireland, as part of the overall island of Ireland, becoming more attractive than Great Britain when it comes to asylum seekers seeking somewhere to make their claim, does raise concerns, because if an increased number comes to Northern Ireland, that makes it more likely that there will be an increase in the flow of asylum seekers on the island, from Northern Ireland, to the Republic.”
Earlier, Britain’s Defence Minister Grant Schapps said the British government will not allow Northern Ireland to be the exception to the Rwanda scheme following the court judgment.
Mr Shapps said: “We will ensure we will do everything that’s required to make sure … that Northern Ireland can’t be in this position. Because we believe firmly in being able to control our own borders.
“We are absolutely going to appeal that ruling.
“We won’t let Northern Ireland be an exception – exemption – to the rule in the United Kingdom.”
Additional reporting PA
