Illegal immigrants are being charged up to £80 by some taxi drivers in Northern Ireland to bring them across the Border on roads without immigration checkpoints. The static checkpoints are well known and some of the drivers have admitted using back roads. Since the end of June, immigration officers have been monitoring all points of entry into the State, including ports, airports, train stations and main cross-Border roads.
Some 500 people have been refused entry at Dublin Port and Dun Laoghaire Harbour since new immigration measures came into operation on June 29th.
The measures allow immigration officers to check people arriving from Britain or Northern Ireland to determine whether they should be "given leave to land". This has led to delays at the Border as all buses, coaches and lorries are checked. All trains travelling from Northern Ireland are also checked at the first stop in the Republic.
Taxi drivers are reluctant to talk about the increasing trade since the clampdown in the Republic. One driver, who declined to be named, said he had taken a man from south Armagh to Dublin for £60. The normal fare is £45.
The man, from Zaire, had got a ferry to Belfast. He claimed he worked in London and wanted to be taken to Baggot Street in Dublin. However, when stopped by Garda immigration officers at the checkpoint at Dromad on the main Newry-Dundalk road, he was not allowed to continue his journey. The taxi driver made a detour and crossed the Border near Ravensdale - a rural area a few miles from the checkpoint.
Another taxi driver said he had charged a foreign national £80 to go to Tallaght. "I knew he was dodgy because he wanted to sneak across the Border. . .but you don't ask about a fare, you just go." The driver claimed he travelled the main road and was not stopped at the checkpoint.
He said there were up to 600 refugees looking for ways to be smuggled across the Border.
A spokeswoman for the Irish Refugee Council said it had received unconfirmed reports of taxi drivers charging inflated prices to bring people to Dublin from the North, but had received no complaints. "What the taxi drivers are doing is illegal. They are taking payment to smuggle a person from one place to another and could be in danger of being prosecuted. Even though refugees sometimes have to be smuggled out of their country, it is different if it is done for payment rather than from the goodness of your heart," she said.
Insp Nicholas Conneely, of Harcourt Square, said there was no evidence of asylum seekers using taxis, but many are arriving via Northern Ireland. "How they are coming in is anyone's guess. It is just speculation . . ."
He said no asylum seekers had been found concealed in the container sections of lorries coming through the ports, but not every container was checked "and I have no doubt there is the odd one slipping in".
A senior garda said refugees are being charged up to £80 a head or £500 a car to take them from the Border to Dublin. The immigration officers along the Border are gardai with special training. They are stationed at checkpoints between Donegal and Louth.
Supt Michael Staunton, of Dundalk, said there were many options open to someone wanting to cross the Border. "We are conscious of this and are doing what we can to give the necessary amount of coverage. We are on the Border roads for a number of reasons and use our time there for many purposes," he said.
Gardai are aware of a taxi driver in Dundalk who was asked by two men to bring them to Dublin from Dundalk railway station. He did this for the usual fare and was not aware they were illegal immigrants.