A reply to a Freedom of Information request from a Gript reader has shown that almost all of the people who present themselves at Dublin airport with either no identification or false identification are nonetheless allowed to remain and to apply for International Protection.
A total of 1,562 people presented with no documents or with false documents between September 2024 and the end of February this year. 1,508 of those persons then “indicated to the Border Management Unit that they wanted to make an application for international protection.”
Which means that only 54 – not even 4% – of those who turned up with no evidence whatsoever as to who they are or where they came from, or what age they are, or even what nationality they are, were then not allowed to stay here.
The other 96% are then provided with accommodation and other supports from IPAS and join the more than 33,000 persons already in IPAS accommodation in the state.
The figures also show that of the 6,616 people who applied for International Protection in the state over the period covered by the Freedom of Information response, that – at minimum – 22.8% arrived here with no official documented proof of who they were, or where they came from.
When we also factor in – as a recent PQ response to Peadar Tóibín showed – that almost 90% of those who apply for asylum in the state do so by apparently crossing the border from the north and then turn up at the IPO office at Mount Street, the conclusion has to be that the Irish state has very little idea of who is coming here.
It will also be noted from the table below that only 10% of applications for International Protection are made at an airport, mostly Dublin. So we might safely assume that of the 1,844 who did so in 2024 that probably close to 1,800 on the average indicated by the Border Management Unit statistics for Dublin airport presented with either no documentation or false documentation.
The other statistic contained in the table shows that over the six months between September 2024 and the end of February this year that 2,702 people were refused entry into the state at Dublin airport.
There is no breakdown of the reasons why so we cannot say for certain how many of those had arrived hoping to make an application for asylum. One might assume, however, that given the 96% who are allowed to apply even though the airport authorities have not one notion really who they are that it must be rare that someone coming here to apply for International Protection is put back onto the plane on which they arrived.
Figures contained in the table above for the year of 2022 would indicate that there has been a drop in the numbers of people who arrive with no documentation or false documentation. The average for the 12 months of 2022 was 423 compared to 260 for the six months between September 2024 and February.
However, as the statistics on where people applied for asylum show, there was an even greater drop in the overall numbers of people who applied at an airport. In 2022, that amounted to an average of 400 per month compared to a monthly average of 154 in 2024.
Which might suggest that if you are going to chance your arm here, that the better option is to catch a plane or a boat from the UK or elsewhere to Larne or Belfast and then rock across the border and mysteriously manifest oneself at the International Protection Office in Mount Street.