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Early this morning the Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan announced that a chartered flight containing 32 deported Georgian nationals had left Dublin. They were accompanied by Gardaí and were reported to have landed safely in Tbilisi.
Unfortunately this is outweighed by the fact that in the first two weeks of February 33 Georgians entered the state to claim international protection. There are over 3,100 Georgians in IPAS accommodation despite the fact that Georgia was declared a safe country in April 2018.
There are now almost 3,000 more Georgians in IPAS accommodation now than the 215 person from that country who were thus catered for at the end of 2017, when it was already recognised as a problem.
One hopes that the new “robust” approach is rather more robust than the enforcement of the state’s own restrictions on persons claiming asylum from safe countries.
In a statement from O’Callaghan and Minister for State, Colm Brophy, the deportations were cited as evidence of what Minister O’Callaghan described as a commitment by his Government to ensuring that “our immigration laws are robust and enforced.” He promised that “There will be further flights scheduled in the future.”
There will need to be, as statistics over the past years have shown both a low level of deportation orders issued and an even a lower rate of enforcement. A point that was again underlined in the Dáil on Tuesday when in response to a question from Dublin Central Social Democrat TD Gary Gannon about “the number of residents in IPAS accommodation with an active deportation order,” the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Norma Foley, stated that there are “generally less than 300 people in IPAS accommodation – less than 1% – have an active deportation order.”
Which is another way of saying that there are around 300 people – sometimes more, sometimes less – living in taxpayer funded accommodation even after they have been ordered to leave the state.
After that it all becomes a bit blurred as the state continues to rely predominantly on those who have been “offered assistance to return home voluntarily.”
Another indication of the low risk that illegal immigrants run when entering, or deciding to remain, illegally in the state is that when Minister O’Callaghan was asked by Sinn Féin TD Matt Carthy about the numbers of persons “detained for illegal immigration,” the Minister said that as of Monday this week there were just 36 such prisoners.
Nonetheless, the fact that 32 people have been deported is perhaps a token of intent if such operations are carried out more regularly. As we pointed out before, of 1,070 deportation orders made in the first six months of 2024, just 280 were carried out.
That represented just over one quarter of the orders made. It would also mean that there had been an average of 47 per month. So if even that modest figure is to be exceeded this year, there would need to be more than the odd chartered flight of 32 people. It is also apparent that the numbers of Georgians who continue to arrive outstrips those who are leaving.
Georgia was declared to be a country of safe origin in 2018 yet there are over 3,100 Georgian nationals still in IPAS accommodation. More than there was at the time it was declared to be a safe country. Another 635 people arrived from Georgia in 2019.
There is no more reason that thousands of Georgians or South Africans who are also from a safe country of origin, ought to be living here at the expense of citizens than thousands of people from France or New Zealand. Deportation would not even be an issue if they were refused entry after initial processing.
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