Minister’s crackdown on bogus refugees
JUSTICE Minister Helen McEntee has signalled an ongoing crackdown on asylum seekers who misuse the system.
Speaking on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics, Ms McEntee said extra staff and an accelerated process for ‘safe’ countries would expedite the process for genuine cases — ‘people who are fleeing war, fleeing persecution’.
The decision to add Botswana and Algeria to the list of safe countries, from which people who come here do not automatically qualify for asylum, has been criticised by human rights groups.
But Ms McEntee said: ‘Everything that I’m doing, introducing the accelerated process for safe countries, more than doubling the staff that we have in the IPO [International Protection Office], making sure that we move to electronic means so we can speed up the process is to make sure that people who shouldn’t be using the system are gotten out of it quickly.’
But she stressed: ‘The people who genuinely need it can access support’. The minister explained that she does not believe that Irish people want to stop accepting people who are fleeing war.
‘What they want to make sure is that we have a system that works, that functions and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing,’ Ms McEntee said.
The Government will also start running flights to deport people who have failed in their asylum applications. The first flights, which would use private aircraft hired by the Department of Justice, are expected later this year.
Dáil questions from Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín reveal that this represents a significant ramping up of current policies.
However, Mr Tóibín’s questions reveal that just 17 asylum seekers were ‘escorted’ from the State in 2022, while another 19 were deported in the first nine months of last year.
The figures also reveal that, between 2018 and the end of September last year, just 2,499 deportation orders were signed.
Of these, 232 people were escorted from the State, and another 206 people left after an order was served on them.
Some 201 have left via a voluntary return programme offered by the Department of Justice and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM): an inter governmental organisation promoting humane and orderly migration.
Ms McEntee also pledged to crack down on arson attacks on buildings associated with rumours of asylum accommodation and criticised people who did not assist the gardaí.
The minister told RTÉ: ‘There are people across the country who know people who are responsible for this, and by not coming forward, you are absolutely complicit. We could have a fatality if it continues.
‘There might be a rumour spread and a building that’s vacant that has nothing to do with anything, other than a vacant property, is suddenly set alight,’ the minister warned.
‘There are individuals here who have to take responsibility. And those who have information as well, they have to come forward. Otherwise they are as guilty as the person who lights the match,’ Ms McEntee added.
She also warned that, when it comes to punishment, ‘we do have quite tough penalties, up to life in prison.’