With the European and local elections just two days away, Justice Minister Helen McEntee has said she plans to fight “irregular migration” but issuing bigger fines for airlines that fail to prevent passengers from entering the State without valid travel documents.
Currently, airlines face a maximum fine of €3,000 per passenger. However, during an interview with RTÉ’s News At One program, the Minister has said she intends to raise this to €5,000.
“There is a legal obligation on our airlines to make sure that any person who gets onto a plane, any person that comes to this country, that they come with the appropriate documentation that they have a valid visa if that is what is required of them,” the Minister said.
“So, what I am doing is placing and replacing an emphasis on the obligation that exists within our airlines and within the overall airlines system.”
The Minister said that while individuals who arrive in Ireland are entitled to seek asylum without valid travel documents, they cannot legally board a plane with false or no papers.
“It is a crime to come here or to get on a plane with false documents claiming to be someone else or to destroy your documents when you get here,” she said.
The Minister said the new measures would be part a Miscellaneous Provisions Bill, which may be passed by the Dáil summer recess.
“The legislation which provides the obligations for carriers and the level of fines have been unchanged since 2003,” she said.
Moreover, in a statement today the Department of Justice said that the Border Management Unit and Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) are now carrying out “doorstep operations to target those who destroyed documents inflight.”
“These are intelligence led operations based on trends observed by immigration officials,” the Department said.
“…An Garda Síochána has prosecuted nearly 100 people in 2024 for arriving without appropriate documentation and a significant number have been imprisoned.”
On this point, Minister McEntee added that such measure are “key to upholding the integrity of our immigration system.”
Notably, in 2023, of the 2,591 who claimed asylum at Dublin Airport, nearly 87% had no or false documents.
Immigration has been one of the defining issues of this election cycle, with Fine Gael MEP Maria Walsh saying this week that election candidates saying they oppose “open borders” has been “the most dangerous” rhetoric of the campaign.
Fine Gael MEP Maria Walsh has said that election candidates saying they oppose “open borders” has been “the most dangerous” rhetoric of the campaign.https://t.co/AUKEdli7cR
— gript (@griptmedia) June 4, 2024