An examination of \u201cevery aspect\u201d of migration policy is taking place, the Taoiseach has said, as his government colleague was accused of being Nigel Farage-like.<\/p>\n
T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris, the Foreign Affairs Minister, said migration was \u201ctoo high\u201d in Ireland and that the country did not have a system to \u201cdeal with such large numbers\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur migration numbers are too high and I think that is really an issue that needs to be considered in a very serious way by government,\u201d he said at Government Buildings on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
This prompted opposition TD Gary Gannon to suggest of Mr Harris \u201cmaybe he\u2019s going down the (Reform UK party leader) Nigel Farage route\u201d.<\/p>\n
Taoiseach Micheal Martin said Justice Minister Jim O\u2019Callaghan \u201cis looking at every aspect of migration policy\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said about 3,500 asylum applications were submitted in Ireland before the pandemic, which had risen to 13,500 in 2023, and 18,500 in 2024.<\/p>\n
He said it appeared there would be 12,000 asylum applications by the end of 2025, which represented a drop of 40% on last year.<\/p>\n
He said 70% of asylum applications are refused at the first stage of appeal and that the appeals process \u201cneeds to be quicker\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added that a strong relationship with the UK was needed as the \u201cvast majority it seems to me are coming over the border\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are issues we can discuss with the British Government in terms of returns and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about the suggestion of using deportation hubs, whereby failed asylum applicants would be sent outside the EU, he said: \u201cThese are issues we will examine, we\u2019re not ruling anything out.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThe people know procedures are strict here, they\u2019re firm, they\u2019re fair. And then also, there\u2019s been far more deportations this year, and deportation orders signed in the last nine months, all of which is having an impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the message has gone out, if you don\u2019t qualify, and if you know you\u2019re not going to qualify, don\u2019t bother coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aont\u00fa leader and Meath West TD Peadar T\u00f3ib\u00edn said Mr Harris\u2019 statement represented a \u201csignificant U-turn from Fine Gael\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said he supported the process of offering asylum to those fleeing war but described the asylum process in Ireland as \u201ca chaotic system\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said figures released to his party indicate there are 18,074 people waiting at the first application stage and 15,041 people appealing against the result.<\/p>\n
Asked about the suggestion that Mr Harris was similar to Mr Farage, Finance Minister and Fine Gael TD Paschal Donohoe said: \u201cWe make the case for openness, we make the case for our membership of the European Union. We make the case for international engagement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is the anti-Farage argument.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to maintain consent for all of that, we need to ensure that the rules we have are properly followed and well executed, and the Government is working and finding all the ways we can to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An examination of \u201cevery aspect\u201d of migration policy is taking place, the Taoiseach has said, as his government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-154669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115467060749367728","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}