Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies for their questions. Last week or the previous week, the Minister for Justice, Deputy Harris, and I had a meeting with the Garda National Immigration Bureau and the border management unit of the Department of Justice to discuss some of the issues raised by Deputy Mattie McGrath and to examine how we can improve border security and make sure that people who should not get into the State are not able to do so. We have had very close co-operation with the authorities in the United Kingdom on the common travel area. What they said to me is that they have seen a big reduction the number of people who have come through the airports and claimed international protection. That is at least in part down to the fact that gardaí are stopping more people coming off the aeroplanes and checking their documents. If they do not have documents, they can be kept on the aeroplane. Gardaí have also been travelling to airports in other parts of Europe from where people often fly to Ireland. This has helped to significantly reduce the number of people arriving at our airports without any documents and then claiming international protection. I thank the Garda for its work in that regard. I also thank the airlines, which also have a responsibility not to allow people on aeroplanes unless they have the correct documents.

They believe - it is never possible to know for sure - that there has been an increase in the number of people travelling to the Republic from mainland Britain or Northern Ireland and seeking international protection here. We are not, for all sorts of reasons that I do not think I need to explain, going to start doing wholescale checks on people crossing the Border from North to South. This is an issue. It is one area on which we will have to co-operate much more closely with the UK - with which we have a common travel area - in order to ensure that there are fewer irregular arrivals to Britain and Ireland. This is definitely something I want to discuss with Prime Minister Sunak in the near future.

I was also updated on the number of deportations. In the region of 600 deportation orders were issued in the past few months and work is being done to increase the number of deportations to countries of transit and countries of origin. Bear in mind, these are people who applied for international protection and were refused because they were not entitled to it. Essentially, their stories did not check out or did not meet the standard we set for people to get international protection. It was pointed out to me clearly that even in countries from which there are large numbers of deportations, it is hard to make deportations happen and you can only ever do a certain number. Deportation has an important deterrent effect, however. If people believe that if they come to the country, claim international protection and have no prospect of being deported, this will increase the number of people who come here invalidly. It is important to have deportations in order to send out that message to people that if you need international protection or are a refugee, you are welcome here and we will provide you with protection. However, we must also be firm. If people are coming here with false stories or on false pretences, they will not be able, by means of various mechanisms, to stay here for years and years in order that they can acquire some form of status. People must know that we will issue and enforce deportation orders.

We do not have a Cabinet committee on immigration. The matter is dealt with either through the Ukraine humanitarian committee or by means of social policy. The failure to pay many hotels and accommodation providers is a big issue. Certainly, when we are asking them to renew their contracts, it does not help if we have left them in arrears. I acknowledge that is a problem. The position is improving. Additional staff have been provided to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to help with that. It has outsourced some of its processes to contractors, which has also helped a great deal. I think we will see significant improvements in respect of payments to hotels and other accommodation providers in the next few weeks. Indeed, such improvements are already happening.

I agree with the comment to the effect that it is terrible that we are accommodating people in tents. Of course it is. I hope that will be a temporary measure as we step up modular accommodation and other accommodation in other locations around the State. I hope we will not have to use tents but I cannot guarantee that we will not. How did this happen? Why did it happen? I would have thought that was obvious to everyone. We are facing the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since the 1940s. People have seen refugee crises in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. They know what those crises look like. This is the first time we have had a refugee crisis like this in Europe since the Second World War. Some 8 million people have been displaced either within Ukraine or outside it. Approximately, 1% of the latter have come to Ireland. We are doing our best to provide shelter for them. It is off the scale in terms of anything we would ever have planned for. Even if we had remarkable foresight two years ago, had known that Vladimir Putin was going to invade Ukraine, had know the number of people who would seek international protection would treble and had built a city the size of Waterford and comprising 20,000 houses and apartments, it would be full by now. That is the scale of the challenge we are facing. I met other European Heads of Government in February to discuss this matter. All 27 member states across the European Union are facing the same challenges in trying to find accommodation for a huge number of people who have been forced to leave Ukraine or who are coming into Europe from other parts of the world.

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