Cork North Central TD Ken O’Flynn has called on the Minister for Justice to account for every person released from prison last year while subject to a deportation order, after a reply to the Deputy left 9 of the 29 people subject to such orders unaccounted for.
In a reply to Deputy O’Flynn, the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration confirmed that 29 people who were subject to valid deportation orders were released from custody at the end of their sentences in 2025.
The Minister stated that 15 were removed from the State, 4 applied for International Protection, three of them only after being detained for deportation, and 1 could not be removed due to a High Court challenge.
“That accounts for 20 people at most. My question asked specifically how many were not removed and why. The reply says nothing about the other nine,” Deputy O’Flynn said.
“I am not making assumptions about where those nine people are. That is the point. The public is entitled to know, and the Minister has not told us. Are they still in Ireland? Were they removed later? Did they leave of their own accord? Nobody knows from this answer, and that is not good enough.
“The Minister’s own reply says that removing people involved in criminality is a priority. If that is so, the Department should be able to account for every one of these 29 cases. I have asked the Ceann Comhairle to direct that a full answer be given.
“It is also striking that three people applied for International Protection only after they had been detained for deportation. People will rightly ask whether the system is being used to delay removals that the courts and the State have already decided on.
“Separately, the Irish Prison Service has confirmed that it does not record the country of birth of people committed to prison. If we do not collect basic data, we cannot have an honest debate about any of this. That is why I have brought forward legislation to require the recording of nationality and immigration status in criminal records,” he said.
Minister Jim O’Callaghan has said that he intends to oversee a “rules-based and robust” immigration system. “The enforcement aspects of our laws, including deportation orders, are an essential requirement for the system to work effectively and to ensure there is public confidence in the application of our legislation in this area,” he said.
“I will take action if our laws are not upheld and this includes enforcing deportations for individuals involved in criminality and who pose a danger to society. Today’s operation underpins my commitment in this area,” he added.
This week it was revealed that six Nigerian criminals deported in July were judged too “high risk” for travel on a commercial flight , necessitating a special charter aircraft instead.
Instead, they were flown to Rome on a chartered aircraft, which cost the Irish taxpayer nearly €77,000. There, they joined up with an operation by the Italian government and the European border agency Frontex to have people removed from several EU member states.
The six men had accumulated 75 criminal convictions while living in Ireland, Ken Foxe reported.
Applicants from Nigeria, Georgia and Somalia are now making up nearly half of all asylum applications here.