If you’re a Gript reader, you will be aware that, as far back as January 2024, questioning from a small handful of TDs and from this platform led to the Department of Justice acknowledging that the Irish system of supposedly vetting asylum seekers was not, in fact, even comparing the fingerprints of migrants against a criminal database.
As revealed by a series of parliamentary questions and Gript’s examination of the issue and persistent queries, the Irish State is, in fact, running fingerprints against Eurodac – which the Department of Justice had made clear “is not a criminal records database”. Eurodac contains fingerprints of international protection applicants or people who have crossed a border illegally. It doesn’t tell us if someone is an upstanding person, or a convicted thief, or a drug dealer, or a rapist, or a murderer.
But you may also have noticed that, at the weekend, the same media who had previously mostly ignored that revelation above re fingerprinting – while extensively reporting on politicians and NGOs who erroneously claimed that fingerprints were used to carry out criminal checks on migrants – are now acknowledging that “immigration officials in Ireland may not be able to perform robust identity checks and security screening on asylum seekers due to the country’s lack of access to key EU security databases”.
In fact, RTÉ heard from a former deputy director of military intelligence of the Irish Defence Forces security expert Michael Murphy who said the Irish asylum system “is wide open for abuse”.
“You have people coming in, travelling in without passports. We don’t know who they are. If you’re coming from a third country, say far away, how do you do the security check on who they are?” he said.
“They can come in on a false passport. They can come in and stay in the country, not ever be discovered. So therefore yes, our system or lack of border control is a security threat to the State.”
That is what we wrote about 16 months ago, after dragging the information out the Department of Justice regarding what actually happens after asylum seekers are fingerprinted. Because what we learned was the criminal checks we were assured was happening were not, in fact, taking place.
And, as Mr Murphy also observed, there’s the issue of checking for criminal records when the migrant has come from a country in Africa or Asia which does not subscribe to a database against which the Irish authorities are performing their checks.
It’s rather astonishing, isn’t it: the sudden volte-face by the media, the realisation that perhaps what those outside the establishment bubble was saying was, in fact, correct. As Pat Flanagan, one of just a handful of journalists who spoke honestly about this issue, observed: “talk about stating the obvious, but until recently, if you said so you’d be branded as right wing or even a fascist.”
Whether migrants were vetted or not became a hugely important issue since the controversy over immigration deepened, because many people, especially those living in communities where IPAS centres were being imposed without any consultation or discussion, became increasingly concerned when it became known that thousands and thousands of people (a total of 22,000 persons to the end of 2024, in fact) had entered the country with no passport or with false documentation.
As ordinary people around the country understood very well, this meant a huge gap existed in the State’s knowledge regarding the identity of those arriving – and they were coming in unprecedented numbers.
In common parlance, this cohort of people became known as “unvetted migrants”, and, according to the media and the political establishment, the use of that phrase immediately meant you were racist and far-right and spreading misinformation and disinformation. But the pushback wasn’t confined to name-calling: the demonisation of local communities who were understandably upset was what led to the extraordinary scenes of Gardaí pepper-spraying, baton-charging, and beating ordinary Irish citizens protesting mass immigration.
The flat denial of the truth – that there was, and is, a security threat to the State and to ordinary communities caused by the failure of the authorities to establish whether the tens of thousands of people arriving without identification now living amongst us have a criminal record – was, and is, perpetrated at the highest level by people who surely must have known better.
As I wrote at the time, the admission from the Department of Justice contradicted some of the most senior politicians in the country who insisted we had “very robust checks” in regard to immigration, and that asylum applicants’ fingerprints were compared against databases including, “of course”, checks against criminal records.
It wasn’t just Leo Varadkar, of course: then Minister Roderic O’Gorman told the Journal that: “When an International Protection applicant arrives in the country, they’re fingerprinted. Their fingerprints go through two databases. One to see if they’ve been involved with the immigration authorities in any other EU member state and the other to see if they’ve been involved in criminality in any other member state”. Simon Harris took issue with ‘far-right misinformation’ and their ‘stoking’ of fear regarding checks, insisting fingerprints of asylum seekers were checked against “watchlists” and “databases”.
Media commentators took up their comments with gusto, insisting that “one of the biggest myths we have is these people are unvetted when they come into the country” and claiming “their fingerprints and names are checked against international databases – if there is a record of criminality they are dealt with differently.”
In fact, in January of this year, RTÉ were still carrying major interviews disputing that checks were not carried out, and in February the new Minister for Integration, Norma Foley, was still insisting that everyone is vetted because they are fingerprinted when she was quizzed about the criminal record of Quham Babatunde. In response to queries, the Department of Justice talked up another possible check, the Schengen Information System. But queries from TDs and from Gript prior to January 2024 had found that:
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.
In fact, this new realisation covered by the media at the weekend (its not new to the expert they interviewed, Michael Murphy, who has been pointing this out for a long time) that maybe our shambles of an asylum system might just, in fact, be a security risk, seems to have been prompted by a report in which immigration officials warned that Ireland may not be able to perform checks and security screening on asylum seekers due to the country’s lack of access to the Schengen security databases.
The report raises concerns about the “new implementation plan for the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum” and, as noted above says Ireland “may not be able to carry out the most robust identity validation” because the country is excluded from the IT border security systems of the Schengen Area.
The plan prepared for the Government warns of a “concern” that Ireland “may not be able to adequately conduct screening” because it will not have access to the EU’s Entry/Exit system, the European Travel Information and Authorisation System, and the EU Visa Information System.
The EU’s Entry/Exit system is a new IT system to help member states to manage the EU’s external borders. It will be operational in October of this year, and will record the date and place of each entry and exit, facial images and fingerprints of travellers to the EU, and whether an individual has been refused entry to a country.
The Schengen area includes most EU member states, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. Ireland is not a member due to being part of the common travel area with the UK.
According to the European Commission, the database is designed to prevent irregular immigration, and identify travellers who have no right to enter, or have exceeded their permitted stay. The system can also identify travellers who are using fake identities or passports, and the information will be used to detect and investigate terrorist offences and other serious crimes.
But, in fact, none of that should come as a surprise either. Last June, then Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, told the Dáil that, in relation to the EU Migrant Pact, Ireland’s participation in Schengen screening wouldn’t be possible.
“The screening regulation will apply where a person first enters the EU irregularly or is identified in a member state without permission. Such people will be required to undergo a screening procedure within seven days at most. This will consist of identification or verification of identity. There will be health and vulnerability checks, security checks, fingerprints and registration in what is known as the Eurodac database. While we cannot opt into this measure because we are not members of Schengen, we will align our laws with this system to ensure we can benefit from the data which is gathered throughout Eurodac, while also providing this data to other member states,” she said.
The government – and Oppositon – have known since the beginning that we can’t avail of the Schengen checks: but in any case it is not, just as Eurodac is not, a criminal database. And neither system does anything to protect us against the fact that we really have no reliable system to check for criminal records when people arrive here from countries outside the EU, especially when they have destroyed their documents.
Michael Murphy is right: our lack of border control is a security issue – and we are increasingly seeing the results of that failure of vetting playing out in the courts. The media are now acknowledging what ordinary people have long asserted. Perhaps the same media might have the decency to apologise to all the communities they labelled racist for having perfectly legitimate concerns around the identity and possibility of criminal records of those being placed in asylum centres in their areas – centres which were often forced through by the threat of a Garda baton.