Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left)
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647. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if she will provide a breakdown of the annual number of deportation orders issued; and the corresponding number of deportation orders executed for each of the past ten years. [34026/14]

Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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650. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of deportation orders issued to citizens of states to which the State will not return people; and if she will provide a breakdown of the figures for each state for the years 2011, 2012, 2013 and to date in 2014 and for each state. [34073/14]

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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680. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons under 18 years of age who have been issued with deportation orders in the years 2011, 2012, 2013, and to date in 2014. [34611/14]

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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681. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons under 18 years of age who were born on the island of Ireland who have been issued with deportation orders in the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and to date in 2014. [34612/14]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 647, 650, 680 and 681 together.

A Deportation Order requires a person to remove themselves from the State and it is only where they fail to do so that the State is forced to remove them and enforce the rule of law. The process leading to deportation is extensive with many avenues of appeal, including judicial review in the High Court, open to persons subject to Deportation Orders.

In determining whether to make a Deportation Order, I must have regard to the factors set out in Section 3 (6) of the Immigration Act, 1999, as amended, and Section 5 (Prohibition of Refoulement) of the Refugee Act, 1996, as amended.

This essentially means that the safety of returning a person, or refoulement as it is commonly referred to, is fully considered in every case when deciding whether or not to make a Deportation Order i.e. that a person shall not be expelled from the State or returned in any manner whatsoever to a State where the life or freedom of that person would be threatened on account of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.

The matter of effecting removals from the State is a very complex area and there are many reasons why Deportation Orders may not be enforced. Among these reasons are Judicial Review proceedings taken in the lead up to and often immediately prior to deportation and issues procuring travel documents for certain countries. However, there is no list of countries that the State will not deport to and each individual case is considered on its own merits.

There is no direct correlation between the numbers of Deportation Orders issued and those executed in any particular year. Since 2009 over 14,000 Orders were made with over 1,500 persons removed during the same period. It should also be noted that a Deportation Order requires a person to remove themselves from the State (which occurs in many cases) and it is only where they fail to do so that the State is forced to remove them and enforce the rule of law.

With regards to persons under the age of 18 years, who were born in the Ireland of Ireland it should be recalled that over 10 years ago a claimed right to reside in Ireland based solely on the birth of a child in Ireland had come to be used as a method of attempting to circumvent normal immigration controls. In order to address these concerns, a referendum was held in June 2004 to amend the citizenship provisions in the Constitution which was overwhelmingly carried. This allowed the Oireachtas to deal with the issue of citizenship for children of non-national parents and the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 2004 was enacted.This complicates the issue of right to remain for persons under 18, depending on whether they were born before or after the legislative changes. However, I can say that it is the aim wherever possible to deal with family units together.

I am advised by the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service that, having examined in detail the request for detailed breakdowns of deportation orders made in respect of persons under 18 (born in the island of Ireland) or otherwise, it is not be possible to provide the figures requested.Attempting to do so would mean matching and cross-matching a large number of data sources in such a way that the veracity and reliability of the resulting statistics could not be guaranteed. In addition, carrying out such an exercise would have a significant impact on the ability of a number of processing units to carry out their day to day work and would divert resources away from the processing of individual cases which is my priority.