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Taoiseach Simon Harris has said that Ireland will not “provide a loophole” for the migration challenges in other countries.
Speaking at an event in Monaghan, Mr Harris said that while every country is entitled to its own migration policy, he does not intend to allow the policies of others to “affect the integrity of our own one”.
“This country will not in any way shape or form provide a loophole for anybody else’s migration challenges,” he said.
Mr Harris’s comments come after it emerged 80% of recent asylum seeker arrivals to Ireland came from the UK via the land border with Northern Ireland.
Last night, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said this shows his government’s so-called Rwanda policy is working as a deterrent.
The Rwanda policy will see asylum seekers arriving in the UK being placed on a one-way flight to Rwanda, with the aim of deterring others from crossing the English Channel to England from Europe on small boats.
The Taoiseach said it was a matter for the British people to decide whether their policies are working.
Mr Harris said that the Government intends to have a firm rules-based system that is enforced and seen to be enforced.
Minister for Justice Helen McEntee is due to meet the British Home Secretary James Cleverly tomorrow.
No contact from Irish Govt on issue of people crossing border, says O’Neill
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill said she has had no contact from the Irish Government on the issue of people looking for international protection coming across the border from the North.
Speaking at the launch of Sinn Féin’s local and European election campaign in Dublin Ms O’Neill said: “I’ve yet to hear from Helen McEntee, or the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste in terms of the issues they have outlined over the last number of days and for me that highlights or maybe even underlines how disorganised they are in dealing with this issue.
“Policy responsibility for the immigration system sits with the British government. I’m aware that Helen McEntee will meet James Cleverly over the next 24 to 36 hours.
“There’s also a British-Irish intergovernmental conference this week. This is the forum at which these issues need to be addressed.”
Legislation is to be introduced at Cabinet on Tuesday in response to a recent High Court ruling that Ireland’s designation of the UK as a “safe third country” for returning asylum seekers, in the context of the Rwanda plan, is contrary to EU law.
Speaking on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Peter Burke said he has not yet seen the legislation that will be going to Cabinet but there needs to be “a lot of joined operations” with police in Northern Ireland to deal with the issue of asylum seekers crossing the border, which he described as a “huge challenge”.
Mr Harris said that the new legislative proposals that will be brought forward to Cabinet will seek to put in place a new returns policy.
“We will await the full details of that but it is one that will allow for people to be returned to the United Kingdom,” he said.
When asked whether the Government intended to carry out checks on people crossing the border into the Republic of Ireland from Northern Ireland, the Taoiseach said that gardaí and the PSNI already collaborate and work together but that more was needed.
“I do certainly think there’s going to be a need for much more of that, in terms of that collaboration,” he said.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said: “We want to see what those plans are. Clearly, there has to be an efficient way of managing all of this.
“I hear that they are saying that they will now have accelerated procedures for people who are making a claim. I think that would be very welcome but I’m conscious also we’ve heard commitments like this before and they haven’t been delivered on.”
Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys warned against the use of language by some opposition politicians around “open borders”.
“We’re an island as you know and the only open border we have is with Northern Ireland and we want to keep that in place,” she said.
“We fought hard to keep that open during Brexit and it’s important that that stays.
“I think people need to be careful in the language that they use because it can cause difficulties.
“We know what the British said around Brexit, it was, you know ‘Bring Back Our Borders’; that’s wrong.
“We shouldn’t be talking like that. It’s dangerous language and we need to be careful.”
EU Migration Pact would ‘protect our people’ – Burke
Mr Burke said the EU Migration Pact, which would set new regulations to deal with asylum seekers, would “protect our people” and ensure a strong migratory policy.
It aims to cut the times for security and asylum procedures at external EU borders and increase returns to reduce unwanted immigration from the Middle East and Africa, a high priority on the bloc’s agenda.
Mr Burke said that if Ireland was outside the pact and people were to come into Ireland, the ability to return them would be “significantly compromised”.
“We’d actually become a destination then because we would be an outlier and we’d be outside this pact,” he said.
Minister @peterburkefg speaking on the open border.
🗣 “That’s critical to our sucess as an island economy”
Rebroadcast tonight at 22:00 on RTÉ News Channel and at 23:25 @RTEOne #RTETWIP pic.twitter.com/95P0ZIeAYt— The Week in Politics (@rtetwip) April 28, 2024
Asked about plans to overhaul the EU’s migration system, Ms McDonald said: “I think the turn of events and the specific set of circumstances that we have to deal with on the island of Ireland actually argue against signing up to the EU Migration Pact – lock, stop and barrel.
“Unlike other European jurisdictions, we have to deal with our next-door neighbour of Britain and we have to have the flexibility and the capacity to manage that.”
Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said he believes there should be an Irish Sea border and that a person coming onto the island of Ireland should have a passport check. He said the idea of checkpoints on the border “was not possible”.
🗣Aontú Leader @Toibin1 provides his perspective on checks for any person coming onto the Island of Ireland.
Rebroadcast tonight at 22:00 on RTÉ News Channel and at 23:05 on @RTEOne #RTETWIP pic.twitter.com/8WdntUMyLa
— The Week in Politics (@rtetwip) April 28, 2024
Independent TD Marian Harkin said the asylum system here “is not working”. She said the system works in other countries but “just doesn’t work for Ireland”.
“What Ireland must do is have a system in place that is fair and robust but that works, and that’s not happening,” she said.
She said they are “genuinely concerned” about giving that responsibility or part of it over to the EU.
