{"id":217904,"date":"2025-12-06T03:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T03:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/217904\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T03:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T03:37:09","slug":"deportation-flight-carried-more-than-triple-number-of-gardai-as-failed-asylum-seekers-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/217904\/","title":{"rendered":"Deportation flight carried more than triple number of garda\u00ed as failed asylum seekers \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

There were more than three times as many garda\u00ed<\/a> as deportees on a half-full flight to Pakistan<\/a> even though it included just one person with a serious criminal conviction, official records show.<\/p>\n

The deportation operation in September cost \u20ac474,000 and involved 24 failed asylum seekers<\/a>, according to internal notes from the Department of Justice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Three of the people on board had \u201cminor offences\u201d on their record but were never sent to jail, while one had a serious criminal conviction from the UK.<\/p>\n

The notes show that 79 members of the Garda were on board, an average of 3.3 per deportee, as well as a doctor, a paramedic, a translator and a human rights monitor. The average bill for each deportee was around \u20ac20,000, as the department said in a statement that such operations were \u201ccostly and complex to enforce\u201d.<\/p>\n

They said charter flights increased the options and capacity available to garda\u00ed and that staffing arrangements were a policing matter.<\/p>\n

A statement said the Garda National Immigration Bureau \u201cconducts a risk assessment for the safety of those travelling. This informs the number of personnel involved\u201d.<\/p>\n

The department said the cost of what they called Operation Toboggan had been \u20ac473,000 with a further \u20ac1,120 spent on catering costs.<\/p>\n

They were not able to provide details of staffing or overtime costs incurred by the Garda in sending 79 officers on the flight to Islamabad.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland open to using deportation hubs outside EU borders, says Jim O\u2019CallaghanOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

An internal note said the Airbus A330 used had 256 seats available but travelled less than half full on the 7\u00bd-hour flight to Pakistan. The note said there were no family groups involved and that the 24 deportees ranged from 23 to 66 years in age. Their average time in the State was nine years and three months with 10 living in IPAS centres and 14 in private accommodation.<\/p>\n

A note for Minister Jim O\u2019Callaghan added: \u201cReferences to the [charter] contract costing the State \u20ac5 million relate to the potential value of the contract over the lifespan of the contract.\u201d<\/p>\n

The term of the contract is three years with a possibility to extend it twice by one year, a potential lifespan of five years in total.<\/p>\n

A separate internal briefing note on Operation Void to remove 23 Romanian citizens in October said it had cost just under \u20ac70,000.<\/p>\n

It said that all had served custodial prison sentences in the State and were being removed under European directives on free movement.<\/p>\n

The note said: \u201cA removal and exclusion order may be issued to an EU national when the person represents a danger for public policy or public security.\u201d Of the 23 deportees, 19 were removed from the State while in the middle of a prison sentence and the four others \u201cwere located and detained\u201d by garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n

The Minister was told 80 garda\u00ed would be on board along with a human rights monitor, a translator and a medical team. The note added that those being removed had accumulated 565 criminal charges between them while living in Ireland.<\/p>\n

A Department of Justice spokesman said it was a \u201cpriority\u201d for the Minister that the immigration system was \u201crules-based and efficient\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe removal of persons who have been refused permission to remain is an essential requirement for the immigration system to work effectively and to ensure that the public has confidence in the application of our laws in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There were more than three times as many garda\u00ed as deportees on a half-full flight to Pakistan even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[956,9,10,13169,13,14,31966,6,26735,11,12,15,16,111230,5,2214,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-217904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-department-of-justice","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-garda-national-immigration-bureau","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-jim-ocallaghan","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-movement-of-asylum-seekers","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-pakistan","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-world","27":"tag-world-news","28":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115670538218342912","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217904","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=217904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}