Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)
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274. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons refused leave to land at Cork Airport from 25 to 31 October 2015, by reason for refusal, by nationality, by gender, by country to which they were returned, and by the number who subsequently applied for asylum. [1895/16]

Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)
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275. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons refused leave to land at Dublin Airport from 25 to 31 October 2015, by reason for refusal, by nationality, by gender, by country to which they were returned, and by the number who subsequently applied for asylum. [1896/16]

Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)
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276. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons refused leave to land at Cork Airport from 15 to 21 November 2015, by reason for refusal, by nationality, by gender, by country to which they were returned, and by the number who subsequently applied for asylum. [1897/16]

Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)
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277. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons refused leave to land at Dublin Airport from 15 to 21 November 2015, by reason for refusal, by nationality, by gender, by country to which they were returned, and by the number who subsequently applied for asylum. [1898/16]

Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)
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278. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons refused leave to land at Cork Airport from 6 to 12 December 2015, by reason for refusal, by nationality, by gender, by country to which they were returned, and by the number who subsequently applied for asylum. [1899/16]

Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)
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279. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons refused leave to land at Dublin Airport from 6 to 12 December 2015, by reason for refusal, by nationality, by gender, by country to which they were returned, and by the number who subsequently applied for asylum. [1900/16]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 274 to 279, inclusive, together.

In general a person may be refused leave to land on one, or more, of the eleven grounds set out in Section 4(3) of the Immigration Act, 2004. Every person refused leave to land in the State is served with a notice in which the reason, or reasons, for refusing an application for permission to enter the State is set out.

I would advise the Deputy that persons refused leave to land and who are subsequently removed from the State are returned to their point of embarkation, which in most cases is within the EU.

I am advised by the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) of my Department that a total of 204 persons were refused leave to land at Dublin Airport with a further 17 refused at Cork Airport during the overall periods requested by the Deputy. An overall total 18 persons sought asylum between both locations. I do not propose to disaggregate these figures further as I have a legal obligation to protect the identity of all asylum seekers in accordance with the Refugee Act.

It should be noted that information on numbers refused permission to enter the State may be subject to revision over time where individual cases are examined further and the status of some cases may change.

The further breakdown of data requested by the Deputy is not readily available and would require the search and retrieval of individual records that could only be obtained by the disproportionate expenditure of time and resources relative to the information sought.