Oireachtas

No interest in Ireland being ‘a pawn in British politics’, says Harris, as he defends McEntee

Aontú's Peadar Tóibín tells Dáil ‘the Minister for Justice does not know what’s happening in the Department’ in light of immigration crisis

Taoiseach Simon Harris said Helen McEntee 'has taken a number of actions that have very significantly improved, in real time, our migration system'. Photograph: Laura Hutton/The Irish Times

Marie O'Halloran
Wed May 1 2024 - 18:25

Taoiseach Simon Harris has said he is proud to lead a country “that honours its international agreements and I expect our nearest neighbours to do the same”.

He also said he had no interest in Ireland being used “as a pawn in British politics”, as he defended the actions of Minister for Justice Helen McEntee in addressing the immigration crisis.

Mr Harris was responding in the Dáil to Aontú TD Peadar Tóibín, who said that there was a crisis in large part “because the Minister for Justice does not know what’s happening in the Department”.

“It’s led into a situation where we had the Tánaiste the rebuking the Minister for Justice, contradicting the Minister for Justice this week” over assertions that 80 per cent of asylum applicants are coming through the North, a figure Ms McEntee stood over again on Wednesday.

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Mr Tóibín said, however, that “now it’s also led to a breakdown of relationships with the British government”.

But Mr Harris said “I have no interest at all in this country being used as a pawn in British politics”. He was proud to lead a State that honours its agreements and said he expected the UK to “honour agreements they sign up to”.

“We have an agreement and it’s called a standard operating proceeding for processing and transferring asylum seekers between the UK and Ireland.”

It has been in place since 2020 and was rooted in “the International Protection Act 2014, and part 18 of the Withdrawal of the UK from the EU Consequential Provisions Act 2020″.

In the UK, the relevant legislation was the Immigration Rules part 11, and the Asylum and Immigration Treatment of Claimants Act, 2004.

Raising the issue of migration, Mr Tóibín said it was “stunning” that the Department did not ask international protection applicants the routes they had used to come to Ireland, and that “incredibly” 85 per cent of deportations were not acted on.

Mr Harris said Ms McEntee “has taken a number of actions that have very significantly improved, in real time, our migration system. And we’ve had to improve it in real time, because we’ve gone from a relatively small number of people, a few thousand every year to a much larger number of people coupled on top of that, with the Ukrainian humanitarian response.”

Speaking in the Dáil, he said: “we’ve seen a very significant increase in deportations. In fact we’ve seen 173 people depart the State under various mechanisms” up to April 26th.

He added that work had been done to introduce faster processing times.

“I have no doubt that over the next number of months that we’ll see significant progress, freeing up a 100 gardaí who were doing desk jobs in terms of immigration and being able to put them on the front line in terms of working with the PSNI.”

On Wednesday, British prime minister Rishi Sunak said UK ministers were seeking “urgent clarification that there will be no disruption or police checkpoints at or near the border” and that there must not be “cherry-picking of important international agreements”.

Mr Harris reiterated that no gardaí will be sent to Border areas, saying: “Of course there won’t be.”

Marie O'Halloran

Marie O'Halloran

Marie O'Halloran is Parliamentary Correspondent of The Irish Times

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