Mr. David Costello:

Yes. We use biometric fingerprinting. Under Irish and EU law and the two decisions in question, all asylum seekers are required to provide their fingerprints. It is meant to support the operation of what is known as the Dublin regulation, which enables decisions to be made as to which state processes an asylum application. The Dublin regulation will not apply in this instance because cases that would normally be for Greece and Italy to process will instead come to Ireland. However, we will still need to take fingerprints so that the relevant EU IT systems are marked to the effect that the applicants are now the responsibility of Ireland, Germany or wherever. People are fingerprinted electronically in my office.