TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR has said he will be communicating with UK prime minister about the issue of illegal immigration into both Britain and Ireland.
Speaking to reporters in Washington DC today, Varadkar said the UK’s immigration policy will have an impact on Ireland.
He said: “Anything that the UK does in relation to migration or border controls impacts on us. We have seen an increase in the number of people seeking international protection who have come across the border from north to south, rather than through our ports or airports.
“That of course, does go in both directions, and because a lot of it is clandestine it’s very difficult to get accurate statistics as to how people got into the country and where they were before that.”
Announcing the plans in the Commons earlier this week, Home Secretary Braverman said asylum seekers arriving illegally in the UK will be detained without bail or judicial review for 28 days before being “swiftly removed” to their home country or a “safe third country” such as Rwanda.
They face a lifetime ban on returning once deported and will never be allowed to settle in the country or gain citizenship.
The Taoiseach said today that there was a need to protect the “valuable” Common Travel Area.
“It’s really important that the Irish and British governments work together on the issue of irregular migration in particular … It’ll certainly form a feature of my conversations with the British government.”
“Certainly when it comes to irregular migration, if we can stop people getting onto either island illegally, then that removes the issue of the crossing between the two jurisdictions.”
He added: “What human traffickers do is they put people on boats and send them across the sea to another country, and they don’t really care if they die on the way or not because they got the money.
“It is a criminal industry. And I think a right-thinking person would want to be hard on that.”
The Taoiseach said Ireland did not have the same issue with small boat crossings that England was experiencing.
“It’s not a particular issue for us in Ireland because our seas are so vast that people can’t get there on small boats, but I can understand why governments across Europe, particularly the Mediterranean area, have to take the actions that they do,” he said.
Additional reporting by Christina Finn and PA
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