Asylum-seeker question sparks a serious political row

On Tuesday morning it was 80 per cent of applicants coming across the Border. By Tuesday evening it was 90 per cent. One report stated that Minister for Justice Helen McEntee had said so much to Cabinet colleagues. At one stage, one political voice had raised it to 91 per cent.

The truth is we don’t know. What is known is that there has been a substantial shift away from making claims for asylum at airports to making them at the International Protection Office in Mount Street.

The first political row is do those figures stack up? Are there streams of asylum seekers pouring across the Border? The claims – even of 80 per cent – continue to be fiercely contested.

Ms McEntee said on Tuesday she stood over figures she provided last week that indicated that at least 80 per cent of asylum seekers were arriving into Ireland over the land Border with Northern Ireland. She also said she had discussed the matter with Tánaiste Micheál Martin and he also accepted the figures, after he said they were not based on statistics, evidence or data.

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The second political row – which is broader and more serious – features in our lead story written by Jennifer Bray and Pat Leahy which discloses that the new emergency legislation to return asylum applicants to Britain will be operational “within weeks”.

However, there is a sting to the tail. As my colleagues write: “Uncertainty remains over how effective the initiative will be in practice.”

British prime minister Rishi Sunak has said he will not accept the return of asylum seekers from the Republic, while Taoiseach Simon Harris said there was a “legitimate expectation” that an existing November 2020 agreement on the return of asylum seekers between the two countries would be upheld.

That’s the rub. What is the status of that 2020 agreement, made after Brexit? The British have said it is merely an “operational arrangement” and there is no legal obligation on it to accept asylum seekers who are returned from Ireland to the UK.

There is a key line in the article that states the Government has acknowledged that the operational agreement has not been previously actioned as no asylum seekers have been returned to the UK in recent years.

Jennifer also has an in-depth analysis piece on the politics of all this.

Government pledges to remove tents at Mount Street

Separately the encampment around the International Protection Office in Mount Street will be struck, Simon Harris has pledged.

Niall Carson of PA took a magnificent photograph of the campsite yesterday using a drone. It showed the extent of it.

The Taoiseach was resolute on Tuesday in saying that once it’s gone, it won’t be coming back. Only time will tell if that promise will hold.

Marie O’Halloran has a full report on how it panned out in the Dáil.

Speaking of Auction Politics

Well Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were quite out of the traps at their respective Ardfheiseanna with promises galore on taxes, welfare increases and pensions.

Sinn Féin muscled in on the act this week with its private members motion calling for increases in excise duties on petrol and diesel to be reversed.

In its alternative budget last autumn, the party said it wanted to end the remaining part of the reduction the Government allowed during the energy/cost-of-living crisis in April.

Now it is saying that the Government should hold off on returning to the original duties because the price differential between the South and the North was too high.

You would swear there was an election in the offing!

Best Reads

Miriam Lord always finds an angle that is way out there. She has surpassed herself today with the revelation that Richard Boyd-Barrett is REALLY BIG in Malaysia, of all places.

Newton Emerson has an excellent takedown of the British government’s Rwanda policy.

Marie O’Halloran reports that Taoiseach Simon Harris insists neutrality ‘not at risk’ with removal of triple lock for UN peacekeeping missions

Indulge me for straying a little outside politics. Ed Power’s is excellent today as he reviews Conan O’Brien’s cameo appearance on the TG4 soap Ros na Rún. He arrives into Tadhg’s bar as a balloon salesman and says his “cúpla focal” with great gusto, albeit an American accent.

Ed’s second last paragraph made me laugh out loud. It’s a fantastic summation of why Ros na Rún can make for unmissable viewing.

“He does not feature again in the instalment, which brims with the bonkers plot lines that are a Ros Na Rún signature. One story concerns a woman spiking a man’s coffee with fentanyl and then suggesting they have a romp in his van (he passes out mid-tumble); in another, an older gent is accused of sleeping around.”

Playbook

Dáil Éireann

09:10: Topical Issues

09:58: Private Members’ Business (Rural Independent Group): Motion re European Union Migration and Asylum Pact

12:00: Leaders’ Questions

12:34: Questions on Policy or Legislation

13:04: Taoiseach’s Questions

14:49: Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024 – Second stage

17:30: Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Human Trafficking) Bill 2023 – Report and Final Stages

19:30: Gambling Regulation Bill 2022 – Report and Final Stages.

21:30: Deferred Divisions: Motion re Petrol and Diesel Excise Rate Increases (Amendment)

22:00: Dáil adjourns

Seanad Éireann

Wed, 1 May 2024

10.30: Commencement

12.45: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023 – Report and Final Stages

15.30: Private Members’ Business: (Green Party Senators)

17.30: Seanad Adjourns

Committees

A very packed schedule of committees today with discussions on public denture services, the town centre first policy, Irish language development outside the Gaeltacht regions, a discussion on defective concrete blocks, and horse welfare concerns.

09.30: Social Protection and Rural Development.

Engagement on Our Rural Future and the implementation of Town Centre First Policies

9.30: Joint Committee on Trade and Employment

The role and operation of the Health and Safety Authority

09.30: Joint Committee on Health

Update on the challenges facing the provision of dentistry services

10.00: European Affairs

Discussion of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and EU implementation of the SDG’s.

13.30: Comhchoiste na Gaeilge

Pleanáil Teanga lasmuigh den Ghaeltacht

13.30: Finance, Public Expenditure

Discussion on Issues Related to Defective Concrete Blocks

17.30: Finance Committee

Committee Stage consideration of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2024 with Michael McGrath, Minister for Finance

19.00: Agriculture

Horse welfare concerns and compliance with legislation

17.30: Disability Matters

UNCRPD at a local level – employment

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