€50,200 spent to deport one person last year

The Department of Justice spent more than €50,000 deporting a single failed asylum seeker last year, it has emerged.

The figure emerged in a response from Minister for Justice Michael McDowell to a question in the Dáil from Labour Party TD Jack Wall, in which he said €50,200 was spent on deporting one person to Gambia in 2004.

Mr Wall had asked the Minister how many aircraft had been chartered to deport people since January 2002 and how much these had cost.

Among the details provided by the Minister were those of a charter on February 20th last year to Gambia. On board for deportation was one adult and no minors, at a cost of €50,200.

"Smaller charters," he said, were "organised to remove disruptive deportees that commercial airlines will not take on account of previous disruptive behaviour".

Since January 2002, 13 aircraft chartered had been for deportations at a cost of €1,628,201. Some 376 people have been deported in this way. Six of the 13 specially chartered aircraft have been to Romania, five to Nigeria, one to Algeria and one to Gambia. Of those that were to Romania, one travelled on to Bulgaria and three on to Moldova.

Two were joint deportation operations - with the Netherlands in November 2003 to Romania and Bulgaria, and with Britain in the same month to Romania and Moldova.

The most expensive charter was the most recent, in March, which deported 26 adults and nine minors to Nigeria, at a cost of €265,000 - or just over €7,500 for each deportee. Among those on this deportation flight was the Palmerstown-based student Olukunle Elukanlo who was permitted to return to Ireland a fortnight after he left, following a storm of protest. He had been deported three months before he was due to sit his Leaving Cert.

There was also controversy about other deportees on this flight, including a number of mothers and children who had been based in Monaghan and Athlone. They have not returned

The given cost of these charter deportation flights excluded Garda expenses. The Minister said it was not possible to break down the exact cost of Garda costs incurred. "However the commissioner informs me that charter flights involve a lower ratio of Garda escorts to deportees than is the case using conventional schedule flights."

He added that specially chartering aircraft were not the only means of deporting people. In 2004, for example, of the 599 people deported, 277 were on chartered aircraft and 322 on scheduled flights. Also, 65 were removed to other states where they had first made asylum applications and 611 were removed under voluntary repatriation arrangements, on scheduled flights.

Speaking yesterday to the Dáil Committee on Justice and Equality, Mr McDowell attacked "bogus" asylum-seeking and "political correctness".

The patience of the Irish people would be very tested if they knew the "cock-and-bull" stories being given by people looking for asylum. "I would prefer to interview these people at the airport, but the UN insists that I go through due procedure," he said.