Mr. Noel Waters:

It is very difficult to say. Four of five years ago, we did an exercise on this. We had approximately 10,000 or 11,000 people on our books at the time who had an application in the system. We did an exercise to clean up the records in this regard. When we had done everything we had to do, it turned out that the actual live caseload was nearer to 6,000, so the other people had disappeared somewhere into the system. More than likely, as the Garda would tell us, they would have left the country and probably would have gone back to the United Kingdom.

We have forcible removals and deportations. A number of different categories of people are removed. In the context of the deportation orders that are signed, ordinarily 15% to 20% of deportees are forcibly removed.

Another difficulty will be addressed by the forthcoming protection legislation which is to be approved by the Government shortly. The difficulty arises from a High Court judgment which found that gardaí who enforce these orders have no right to enter a person's private dwelling to seek to remove that person. That has clearly presented a problem for us for a number of months. It is what is known as the Omar judgment and in effect it means that when gardaí seek to enforce an order, the person concerned can argue that the gardaí are in his or her private residence and have no right to be there. This causes practical difficulties but we will address it in the-----