Michael O’Leary has described the practice of migrants destroying their travel documents and then claiming asylum as a “complete scam”.
Speaking on Newstalk’s The Pat Kenny Show this morning, the Ryanair CEO explained that migrants were arriving into the country on flights without documents because “they flush them down the toilet”. He added that his airline is now working with the Department of Justice to send all non-EU passengers to get their visas checked to prevent this behaviour.
“We’re now taking photographs of their passports at the visa check desk and we want to send that information to the Department,” he said.
“So, if somebody shows up, we, as the airline, will be able to say, ‘Here’s the passport, here’s where we think they were sitting.’”
O’Leary went on to say that individuals entering the State without proper papers or from safe European countries should not be described as “refugees”.
“The problem is they show up here without any documentation,” he said.
“I mean, it’s a complete scam, and these are not refugees. One of the things that drives me nuts in Ireland is we treat people as refugees who are coming from the UK or from France.
“Nobody got to Ireland from Afghanistan, Kenya, Nigeria, or Syria on a direct flight because there aren’t any. So, you are not fleeing persecution in the UK or in Germany.”
He said that while Ireland should look after genuine refugees, and added that he has “great sympathy” for people from Ukraine in particular, in cases where people are coming from the UK or other EU countries, “we should be turning them back to the EU countries where they came from.”
“The challenge for border control is that they arrive here with no documentation, and it’s very difficult to track what flight they came on or what seat they were sitting in, because they tear up or flush their documentation down the toilets,” he said.
“All of them have documentation when they board their Ryanair flight at the other side.”
FLIGHTS WILL HIT €1,000 OVER CHRISTMAS OVER PASSENGER CAP – O’LEARY
During the course of the interview, O’Leary further warned that flights from Dublin Airport could exceed €1,000 this Christmas if the “absurd” passenger cap is not lifted.
The passenger cap was put in place by An Board Pleanala as part of the conditions for planning permission for the second terminal at the airport in 2007, and for an extension of Terminal 1 that was approved in 2008. It limits the number of passengers that can use the airport facilities annually to 32 million.
Last year, 31,908,471 passengers used the two terminals, meaning the airport cannot grow any further without breaching planning permission.
However, O’Leary slammed Transport Minister Eamon Ryan for maintaining the policy, which he described as “insane and stupid”, arguing that the cap would result in Ireland losing thousands of tourism jobs as airlines relocate their planes to more accommodating cities.
“If we had a Minister for Transport who was even modestly interested in aviation or economic growth and development – which his own aviation policy is supposed to support – he would fix this,” said the airline boss.
He mentioned that lifting the cap would allow the airport to accommodate 40 million passengers within three to four years.
“Tourism accounts for about 10% or 12% of Ireland’s GDP,” he said.
“About 120,000 jobs in this country. We’re opening new hotels, we’re developing new restaurants, the Wild Atlantic Way. And all of these tourism facilities need continuing growth in visitor numbers and that can only be done in Ireland through the continuation of low-cost air access.”
He said that the policy would lead to skyrocketing airfares of €1,000 return for Dublin flights this Christmas.
“We’re going back to the old days of flag carrier monopolies,” he added.
Watch the full wide-ranging Newstalk interview below.
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