Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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175. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the reason Schengen co-operation has improved over the past number of years; if she will outline the improvements in the operation of the agreement; if Brexit has allowed an improvement of co-operation through Schengen; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [46857/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware that Ireland's participation in the European Union’s Schengen Agreement is limited to some of the policing co-operation agreements under which participating member states co-ordinate policing activities. This includes the current second generation of the Schengen Information System (SIS II). 

SIS II is a centralised secure database used by European countries for maintaining information (alerts) related to border security and law enforcement and is a critical component of the open border policy that has been operating in Europe. The integration of SIS II into national systems means that automatic alerts are generated in real-time in instances where, for example, a Garda member encounters a person who is wanted or has been involved in a serious crime in another jurisdiction. SIS II also generates alerts on missing persons (in particular children), as well as information on certain types of property, such as banknotes, vehicles, firearms and identity documents that may have been stolen, misappropriated or lost.

Ireland's participation in SIS is not impacted by Brexit, although unfortunately as the Deputy will appreciate, the UK no longer participates in SIS II as a consequence of its departure from the EU.  

On 15 September last, the Garda Commissioner and I welcomed six months of Ireland’s successful connection to SIS II, which occurred on 15 March 2021.

I can inform the Deputy that in the first six months of operation, there have been 74 arrests on SIS Article 26 (Alerts on Persons Wanted for Arrest for Surrender or Extradition Purposes) and 52 Arrests on already endorsed European Arrest Warrants for offences including drug trafficking, robbery, sexual assault, burglary, theft, assault causing harm, fraud and property offences. This is double the corresponding figures for the same six months in 2020.

I am very pleased with the progress Ireland has made since connecting to SIS II six months ago. These numbers demonstrate the positive impact SIS II has had on the investigation of trans-European crime to date, with a significant increase in the number of arrests for a large number of crime types.