The government’s plans to prioritise the prevention of illegal immigration and the execution of deportations rather than processing asylum applications, will be made possible by reassigning 100 officers from An Garda Síochána to frontline duties. This includes duties relating to managing the border. These plans will be shared with the Cabinet by the Justice Minister, Helen McEntee, on Tuesday morning.
The Minister will discuss measures being implemented to prevent the misuse of the Common Travel Area shared between the UK and Ireland for gaining illegal entry to the country and applying for asylum. The role of An Garda Síochána in conducting these operations alongside the PSNI will also be updated.
Following last month’s announcement, the immigration-registration function under the purview of the gardaí will now be undertaken by her department, thereby freeing up a significant number of gardaí for frontline enforcement work. This will include an increased focus on deportations.
A significant number of asylum seekers reportedly enter via the UK through Northern Ireland, and in the current circumstances, the Cabinet is expected to increasingly focus on preventing more such incidences. This is likely due to the stance taken by the UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, against accepting international protection applicants from Ireland until France agrees to accept asylum seekers who had illegally entered the UK from the Calais region.
The anticipated shift in focus by the Cabinet may entail operational challenges considering the open border shared with the UK. Despite this, the re-assignment of additional Garda personnel will likely enable the intensification of Operation Sonnet. This operation is a joint initiative with the UK to prevent the illegal transit of individuals within the Common Travel Area between the two countries. This was agreed to by the British and Irish governments as a measure to monitor the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The latest public statement relating to Operation Sonnet was made by then justice minister Charlie Flanagan in early 2018. He disclosed that between 2015 and 2017, the operation refused entry to 774 individuals into the state, illustrating its effectiveness thus far. Nonetheless, the current tensions over migration between Ireland and the UK challenges the effectiveness of this agreement.
“Operation Gulf, known as Operation Sonnet by others, faced backlash from refugee-supporting organisations over allegations of racial profiling in identifying individuals illicitly traversing the boundary between the State and Northern Ireland.
In response to inquiries regarding checks on immigration for individuals crossing over the border into the Republic, the relevant authorities commented that these checks are performed routinely, with a figure of “around 300 times a month as per the situation”.
The checks are understood to be unplanned or predetermined depending on the situation. The road policing units carry out control points to ensure that vehicles can be safely stopped. There are also checks performed on the railways passing through Co Louth, with inspections initiated at Dundalk, which is the first entry site into this jurisdiction from Northern Ireland.
They stated that the Cross Border Joint Action Task Force will “cooperate to observe and identify illegal immigration”.
This task force, headed by high-ranking officers from both the Garda and the PSNI, has been assembled to combat organised crime that crosses the border.”