Every since it became known that thousands of persons (the greatest number of them likely to be male according to the consistent pattern in IPAS statistics) were being allowed to enter the country without passports or identifying documentation, concerns regarding “unvetted” migrants have grown, especially in areas where asylum centres are forced on often disadvantaged communities without consultation.
Thanks to the excellent work done by Matt Treacy and others, including a small number of TDs, the scale of the problem became clear. Some 13,521 people were let into this country having arrived at Dublin Airport without a passport – and since they needed a passport to get on the plane, they likely destroyed it – between 2018 and 2023 according to information released to Mattie McGrath TD. It is almost certain that thousands more arrived in 2024 to add to that total.
And that’s only what we know from Dublin Airport – no-one really seems to know how many people have come down through the border from the north with fake or no ids, but since Minister McEntee said in May of 2024 that 80% of asylum claimants came to the Republic through that route, its a safe bet that there are significant numbers of those arrivals whose identities are unproven and unprovable wandering around our towns and cities as we speak.
This issue became prominent again over the Christmas break when RTÉ’s Crime Correspondent, Paul Reynolds, interviewed the head of the Garda National Immigration Bureau, Detective Chief Superintendent Aidan Minnock on migration and public safety.
Minnock said “there is no such thing as “an unvetted migrant” to this country and that everyone coming to Ireland seeking international protection is fingerprinted and identified.”
The Chief Superintendent also “also rejected claims, most notably by the far right, that asylum seekers are criminals who pose a threat to public safety”.
There are three serious flaws with this reporting, as RTÉ should know, given that it is resourced and financed to the hilt with hundreds of millions in taxpayer funding.
This dispute regarding “unvetted” migrants was a major talking point at this time last year and Gript seems to be the only news platform that thoroughly investigated the matter, along with questions from Independent TDs.
As I wrote in January 2024, senior politicians such as Roderic O’Gorman and Leo Varadkar were insisting that fingerprinting and checks for criminal records were being carried out when migrants claimed asylum here.
But the information released by the Department of Justice as a result of questions asked by Carol Nolan TD and Michael McNamara (then a TD, now a MEP) they were forced to answer showed that no such checks against a criminal database were, in fact, carried out.
The International Protection Office (IPO) takes the asylum applicant’s fingerprints but, while they are checked against two databases, neither is a criminal database.
They are checked against Eurodac – but, as Matt Treacy has pointed out previously on this platform, Eurodac “is an EU database that stores the fingerprints of international protection applicants or people who have crossed a border illegally”.
The Department of Justice is clear on this matter, confirming in its response to Deputy Nolan that “EURODAC is not a criminal records database”.
“However”, the Department adds, “the underpinning regulations permit law enforcement agencies to compare fingerprints linked to criminal investigations with those contained on EURODAC in certain circumstances involving serious criminal offences”. That would only happen as a “last resort” as per Eurodac.
Our analysis of Eurodac records, from 2015 until May 2023, shows that there have been zero instances in which the Irish authorities have used the Eurodac database “for the purpose of comparing fingerprint data sets in order to prevent, detect or investigate terrorist offences or other serious criminal offences”.
Not a single one.
So what about other databases? Nolan asked:” Are the applicant’s fingerprints checked against any other databases to see if they have a criminal record?”.
The Department revealed that checks are only made against the Schengen Information System (SIS) – which, again, is not a criminal database. SIS contains information about false documents or identification which has been captured by an EU member state or the Schengen associated countries (Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland) – and also shares alerts about outstanding arrest warrants or vulnerable persons. It does not record a person’s criminal history or records.
So according to the Department of Justice, neither Eurodac nor SIS are criminal databases. The ‘fingerprinting’ we are meant to be rely on will only really tell us whether a migrant has previously applied for asylum elsewhere in Europe.
As I additionally previously reported:
The EU agency, Europol, does operate a criminal database, called the Europol Information System (EIS) which is the agency’s “central criminal information and intelligence database. It covers all of Europol’s mandated crime areas, including terrorism.”
But according to the Department of Justice’s response to Deputy Nolan, when processing asylum applicants checks are not made against the EIS database operated by Europol.
Clare TD Michael McNamara also asked a question of the Minister for Justice regarding the use of the Europol system. The Department replied that “An Garda Síochána does not input fingerprints on the Europol Information System (EIS)”.
“An Garda Síochána directly contacts Member States and third party countries via the Secure Information Exchange Network Application (SIENA) if a search on fingerprints is required. As a result, there are no figures available for fingerprint checks against EIS,” the response stated.
Now, far be it from me to tell RTÉ how to do their job, but surely if an independent news platform like Gript, with tiny resources and a very stretched staff, can ascertain the facts in relation to vetting and criminal checks, then surely it’s not beyond the lavishly resourced national broadcaster.
But that then brings me to a second issue: how do we check for a criminal record if we don’t actually know what country the person is arriving from.
2. In fact, there is no foolproof system to check fingerprints of a person coming from outside Europe to ascertain their identity – even if they have already claimed asylum in the EU
When the fingerprints of a person who arrived with false documents – or who has destroyed their passport – are taken, the person will also give a real or a false name.
There is no common, shared, accessible international database which allows the Irish authorities to see if the migrant is, in fact, coming from the country from which he or she claims they have fled. Not only is it very unlikely that the person’s criminal record can be checked – it is unlikely that their real identity can be confirmed.
A recent, and fairly shocking example, is the case of one Peter Dube, a triple murder suspect from Zimbabwe, who, according to the Zimbabwean press, was in Ireland where he was claiming to be a refugee and living in the Red Cow asylum centre in Dublin.
As Gript reported:
The Sunday Mail in Zimbabwe reported that Peter Dube, who is sought on charges of murdering three people, was a fugitive who had left the country for South Africa and then changed identity when relocating to Ireland where he sought asylum.
Police spokesman Assistant Commissioner, Paul Nyathi, told the Sunday Mail that Dube allegedly “relocated to Ireland, where he sought asylum”.
Dube is alleged to have shot dead the suspected lover of his second wife Nyasha Nharingo in Gweru in April 2021. Nyasha’s friend Gamuchirai Mudungwe was also shot and killed in the deadly incident, and her sister Nyaradzo also died in the hospital after being shot.
Sources said during his court appearance, Dube claimed to be a Mozambican national and produced an identity document as proof of his nationality. The new alias he assumed could not be immediately established.
“He enjoyed the benefit of doubt, as the Zimbabwe authorities took long to prove that Dube was a Zimbabwean,” said a source. “When the documentation was later delivered to the Irish authorities, it was too late as Dube had already been deported to Mozambique.
It’s almost laughable, isn’t it? If Dube said he was from Mozambique and the Irish authorities did manage to get the police in that country to check for his fingerprints then he wouldn’t have shown up at all.
How many more incognitos similar to Peter Dube are living in IPAS centres, or drifting about committing numerous sexual offences like Chico Makamda while An Garda Síochana are trying to ascertain whether he is from Angola or the Congo, or appearing in court charged with a stabbing while Gardaí acknowledge their identify can’t really be verified.
To sum up the last two points then:
In fact, at the time carol Nolan further asked that if the asylum applicant did not appear on Eurodac “and is from a country of origin that does not share its databases with Eurodac or the Irish state, is that country contacted to perform a check for criminal records?”.
The Department of Justice said that this would be a “breach of their responsibilities”.
“In relation to countries of origin which will not be a party to the EURODAC database, it would be in breach of our responsibilities in respect of refugee protection to contact the consular or police authorities in relation to persons who have sought the protection of the Irish State as doing so may have the consequence of making such authorities aware of an applicant’s presence in the State, and their claim for international protection,” they replied.
And the Department added: “If an international protection applicant does not generate a “hit” on EURODAC, because they have not had an immigration interaction with another EU State, and they do not have identifying documentation, their international protection claim must still be processed. Their claim, as with all international protection claims, will be determined on the grounds set out in the International Protection Act 2015”.
The situation is entirely farcical. It’s also dangerous.
Now, there’s a chance that the situation has changed since January 2024 and that Superintendent Minnock was referring to some new process that has been put in place to actually vet migrants arriving without ID.
But our Deputy Editor, Gary Kavanagh, wrote to An Garda Síochána after the RTÉ interview was aired asking them if anything in the process as confirmed by the Department of Justice last year had changed. They have yet to come back with a definitive answer – though they did confirm they were talking about the EURODAC database in the interview.
What’s puzzling, of course, is that RTÉ did not put these very obvious questions to Detective Chief Superintendent Aidan Minnock. As it stands, the report is misleading.
3. Minnock wasn’t quoted precisely in the opening paragraphs of the news report
In fairness to the Chief Superintendent, while RTÉ reported that he had said everyone coming to Ireland seeking international protection is fingerprinted and identified, he actually said that asylum seekers were fingerprinted and their identification was “sought off them”.
That’s an important distinction, isn’t it? You can seek someone’s identity. You might get it – or be told a false tale, as clearly has often been the case.
Astonishingly, Carol Nolan also elicited another response from Minister Helen McEntee in 2024 which showed that the state is not keeping data in a manner which allows them to identify the current status of asylum applicants who arrived without documentation. That’s not reassuring at all really, is it?
The RTÉ report did acknowledged that Minnock said “the vast majority “of supposed asylum seekers “are economic migrants seeking a better life” – and that “Albanian, Romanian and Chinese organised crime groups involved in drug dealing, car theft, exploitation and people smuggling are operating in Ireland”.
We have Albanian Mafias in Ireland now. New to the Parish, as the Irish Times would say. Diversity is our strength.
Paul Reynolds is a very well known and respected journalist, but this reporting from RTÉ on checks to ascertain whether undocumented asylum seekers are kosher simply isn’t good enough. At least 13,500 persons without identification have entered the country in recent years.
Local communities who describe them as unvetted males are being gaslit by claims that comparing fingerprints against systems that aren’t, in fact, criminal databases.