A response received by Rural Independent TD for Laois/Offaly Carol Nolan illustrates the huge number of deportation notices issued compared to the small number of those that progressed into deportation orders, few of which are enforced.
They also show that the number of orders issued have dropped dramatically despite the greatly increased numbers since the ending of the Covid restrictions.
That is despite the fact that Georgia and South Africa, which have accounted for 5,436 of the new applicants for International Protection between January 1, 2023, and the end of April this year, have been added to the list of “countries of safe origin.” Therefore, most persons from these countries have no valid grounds for being resident in the Irish state,
234 new applications from Georgia and 978 new applications from persons claiming to be from South Africa were accepted in the first four months of 2024.
In January Deputy Nolan had submitted a PQ asking the Department of Justice to supply “the number of notifications of intent to deport under Section 3 of the Immigration Act 1999 (as amended) from each year from 2001 to date.” She received a response from Minister Helen McEntee in a letter seen by Gript dated May 15.
The letter states that such records have only been maintained electronically since 2013. The table supplied shows that there were a total of 16,114 notices of intention to deport made between 2013 and the end of 2023.
Perhaps of most note is the fact that the number of deportation notices issued has fallen dramatically in the past four years. This despite the fact that the numbers of persons claiming International Protection has risen since the end of the Covid restrictions and continues to increase dramatically.
One would think that the number of deportations would increase in line with that given what we know of the large numbers of persons whose applications are rejected. Added to that is the fact that the state has clearly recognised the tenuous nature of the large number of applications from persons who have arrived here and continue to arrive here from countries designated as countries of safe origin. Many of the other leading “unsafe” countries of origin have high levels of initial rejection.
Yet the statistics show that while 8,566 notices to deport were issued between 2016 and the end of 2019, that just 2,752 have been issued in the four years since the beginning of 2020. That year coincided with the Covid panic and the fall in arrivals and the declaration by the state that it would effectively stop deportations on allegedly humanitarian grounds.
Thus, deportation notices fell from 1,949 in 2019 to 802 in 2020 and to just 561 in 2021. The thing is, however, that this trend has barely been reversed. There were just 605 notices issued in 2022 and 784 in 2023, which is a smaller number than the total of notices issued in 2020. What is the reason for this?
As we noted last week, other information that had been supplied by way of a Freedom of Information request from a Gript reader showed that there were just 78 “escorted deportation orders” carried out by the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) in the two years of 2022 and 2023.
The new information supplied to Carol Nolan shows that this represents just 5.61% of the 1,389 notices to deport that were issued in those two years. Not all notices to deport lead to actual deportation orders. As the Minister noted that the recipient of such a notice has the option of “voluntary return,” of consenting to be deported, or of appealing the notice which if successful leads to their being given “leave to remain.”
We have no idea at all of how many people leave voluntarily when faced with the prospect of being deported. Nor have we exact figures on the numbers who successfully appeal a deportation notice or order and are then given “leave to remain.”
We do know that a considerable number of persons who are or have been in IPAS accommodation are persons who have “leave to remain” rather than persons who have been or are likely to be granted asylum. Just this week, Minister Roderic O’Gorman stated that 1,400 people with leave to remain had left IPAS accommodation so far this year. Another 2,000 had done so in 2023.
We also know that of notices to deport, a relatively small number become actual deportation orders Between the start of 2018 and May 2023 there were 2,442 deportation orders issued. That compared to 6,750 notices to deport that were issued between the start of 2018 and the end of 2023.
Even accounting for the fact that our statistics on deportation orders cover 65 of the 72 months included in the statistics for deportation notices, it can be seen that around 40% of notices actually progress to becoming orders to deport.
And of those orders just 282 or 11.5% were effected between 2018 and May 2023, which would equate to around 5% of notices to deport. Which is pretty close to the % of GNIB “escorted” deportations made of the total number of orders to deport that were issued in 2022 and 2023.