Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

The Deputy will be aware that we do not have an exit system for leaving our country. The reason is that there are various circumstances concerning how we manage people coming and going, particularly with the common travel area. We believe, based on clear indications, that the vast majority of people served with a deportation order do actually leave the country.

The indication is that people who are served with a deportation order choose to leave. They leave voluntarily. The exact tracking of that, which would require a system of having an actual process of registering the exit out of the country, is something that is very difficult to implement within a common travel area. It would put a very onerous burden on people moving across the Border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. For that reason, while we have clear indications that the vast majority of people do leave when served with a deportation order, we do not have number of all those who have left, having been served with one.

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