UK ‘agreed’ to take back migrants from Ireland

Irish prime minister says Rishi Sunak will not admit to asylum agreement with general election looming

THE Irish prime minister has said that Britain agreed to take back asylum seekers, but suggested Rishi Sunak won’t admit it because of upcoming elections.

Simon Harris warned Mr Sunak yesterday there was “legitimate expectation” the UK would honour the post Brexit agreement on migrant returns.

Downing Street admitted there was “an understanding” with Ireland but said it was not legally binding. The Prime Minister has already ruled out accepting any returns, unless the EU agrees to take back migrants who have arrived in the UK over the Channel.

“There’s an agreement in place between Ireland and Britain. This is a two-way agreement. This is to ensure that refugees can be sent in both directions if their application is inadmissible. We will have a legitimate expectation that agreements between two countries are honoured,” Mr Harris said.

He suggested that Mr Sunak’s insistence that the UK would not take back asylum seekers from Ireland was motivated by upcoming local elections.

“I’m not getting involved in British politics, I’m very well aware of where the electoral cycle is at in Britain and it’s not for me to comment on that,” the Taoiseach said. The Irish government claims that up to 90 per cent of asylum seekers turning up in Dublin this year have crossed the border from Northern Ireland to avoid being sent to Rwanda.

The Irish cabinet approved legislation to make it legally possible to start returns to the UK and announced it was redeploying 100 police officers to prevention and deportation duties, including close to the border with Northern Ireland, yesterday.

The emergency legislation was needed after the Irish High Court ruled in March that the UK was not a safe country because of the Rwanda Plan.

Mr Sunak said on Monday he had “no interest” in taking back refugees who crossed into the Republic from Northern Ireland, which he said proved the deterrent effect of the Rwanda Plan was working. “There is an existing understanding and operational procedure with the Irish consistent with the Common Travel Area,” the Prime Minister’s spokesman said yesterday. “There is no legal obligation to accept the return of asylum seekers who enter and cross the Common Travel Area. We are not going to accept returns from the EU via Ireland when the EU doesn’t accept returns back to France.”

The Irish government will re-deploy 100 police officers which Dublin insisted had to remain open during the Brexit negotiations. The Justice ministry will take on asylum processing duties to free up the officers to take part in frontline duties, including deportations and checks close to the border but not on the 300-mile frontier.

Helen Mcentee, the Irish justice minister, admitted that no asylum seekers had been returned to Britain for several years, which she blamed on Brexit, Covid and the High Court judgment.

She told the Cabinet that up to 90 per cent of asylum seekers in Ireland this year arrived via Northern Ireland.

There was speculation in the Irish media that the redeployment of officers could precede a ramping up of Operation Sonnet, which is known as Operation Gulf in the UK. It is a long-standing joint operation to ensure people in the Common Travel Area between the two countries are doing so legally. Mary Lou Mcdonald, Sinn Fein’s leader, accused the Irish government of “incredible incompetence”. She said it had given “a gift to the Tory party”, which was “desperate for a row” over migration. Sinn Fein has a long held poll lead and an election must be held by March 2025.

Meanwhile, Kevin Saunders, the UK’S former chief immigration officer, warned that migrants earmarked for the first deportation flights will disappear and “probably” end up in Ireland.

It came as the Home Office admitted it was unable to locate thousands of migrants it intends to start detaining this week ready for deportation. More than 5,700 migrants have been identified for removal but only 2,145 of them continue to report to the Home Office and can be located for detention.

‘We will have a legitimate expectation that agreements between two countries are honoured’