Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Group 34, amendments Nos. 100 to 104, inclusive, deals with the common travel area.

Amendment No. 100 clarifies that a court can direct the continued detention or conditional release of a person, subject to a deportation order in situations where they are challenging either the validity of the deportation order itself or a subsequent decision by the Minister to affirm the order.

Amendment No. 101 is similar to the above in that it clarifies that the period spent challenging the validity of a deportation order or a decision, under section 3(11) of the Immigration Act 1999, to affirm an order of the Minister is excluded when calculating the maximum eight-week period of detention which is allowable to make the arrangements to enforce a deportation order.

Amendment No. 102 is a technical amendment. Amendment No. 103 clarifies that a person arrested under this section may be brought to a place of detention referred to in the following subparagraphs and detained there.

Amendment No. 104 aims to strengthen our immigration provisions to deal specifically with infringements of the integrity of the common travel area. The amendment, which amends section 4(3) of the Immigration Act 2004, provides that an immigration officer may refuse a person leave to land if he or she is satisfied that the person is entering the State for the sole purpose of extending his or her stay in the common travel area. Such a person can be refused leave to land, irrespective of whether or not the person intends to make an application for international protection. There are large numbers of persons who have spent a period in the UK, exploiting the common travel area, entering our State and claiming asylum to prolong their stay.

We need a balanced migration policy regarding refugees coming to this country. It is assumed that approximately 85% of those in the relocation programme will be deemed to be refugees. In terms of those who are not, a point also emphasised at European level, the safe countries of origin list is part of the intention to have a balanced migration policy to ensure we can deal effectively with it.

The humanitarian issues are enormous regarding the movement of refugees from places of conflict. We are complying fully with European and international law as to how we assess and deal with those seeking international protection. The Government considers it extremely important that we do that and take full account of the humanitarian issues but also of the possibility of people being subject to persecution in other countries and who meet the criteria outlined for international protection. It is important they will be dealt with in the most humane and effective way. However, if people are exploiting this system, we need to be conscious of that too and deal with that in the right way.