Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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820. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons detained in prisons due to refused leave to land at the border; the length of their detention, by month and nationality, for the period of 1 Jan 2016 to 14 July 2020, inclusive in tabular form. [19148/20]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Section 5 of the Immigration Act 2003 (as amended by the International Protection Act 2015), contains the main provisions dealing with the detention of persons refused leave to land. It specifies that a person to whom this section applies may be arrested by an immigration officer or a member of An Garda Síochána and detained in a prescribed place of detention for the purpose of facilitating their removal from the State, which must be as soon as is practicable.

It is the general practice to remove persons from the State on the next available flight or ship.

It should be noted that should any person who has been refused leave to land in the State seek entry to the State at a future point, their application will be assessed on its own merits taking all relevant information into consideration at that time. Their prior immigration history is a matter of record but does not preclude them from seeking permission to enter the State in the future.

The information sought by the Deputy on the numbers of persons detained in prisons for the period of 1 January 2016 to 14 July 2020, is not recorded by the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) and to accurately obtain the requested information would require significant resource deployments by the GNIB to examine all individual records pertaining to persons refused leave to land for the period requested.

For the information of the Deputy,  the following tables provide the numbers of 'Refusals of Leave to Land' at Dublin Airport by the Border Management Unit of my Department for the years requested.

Over the last four years the total number of persons refused permission to enter the State at all ports is as follows: