Over 80% of asylum seekers have come across the border from the North
Justice Minister Helen McEntee told the Oireachtas justice committee that resources have been increased to cut down on the number of people who arrive in Ireland with no documents.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee will meet the British home secretary as early as next week to discuss what the Taoiseach called a "relatively recent phenomenon" of people claiming asylum in Ireland having crossed the border from the North.
Ms McEntee told the Oireachtas justice committee on Wednesday that more than 80% of those seeking asylum in Ireland now come across the border.
She said resources have been increased to cut down on the number of people who arrive in Ireland with no documents, adding that Ireland must be "responsive and reactive" to changing patterns.
Taoiseach Simon Harris had earlier said that "more needed to be done" to deal with the number of asylum seekers crossing the border from the North.
Speaking at the select committee on public expenditure and reform, Mr Harris said the trend of people crossing the border to seek asylum had grown in recent months.
"We have to do more in this space," he replied.
"This wasn't always the way. And, in fact, this is a relatively recent phenomenon".
He said that Ms McEntee will meet with home secretary James Cleverly to discuss the issue "possibly as soon as next week".
Ms McEntee also revealed that less than 100 of the 7,300 people who have been refused asylum in Ireland since the start of 2023 have been deported.
She said that deportations are not what the Government wants to do because it is costly and less effective.
"This is not where we want to be in terms of physically removing people, not only does that take much longer, not only is it much more costly, not only is it much more challenging, it is less effective," she said.
"So you have to remember that we are completely overhauling the system that has taken years to even get to deportation.
"So we're trying to shorten that.”
She said the remaining 7,200 could be at "various different stages" of the process, including appeals, while others may have "self-deported".
While Ms McEntee said she could not pinpoint a single reason for increases in those coming to Ireland through Northern Ireland, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said that it was likely that Britain's proposed plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is "having an effect".
Speaking in Jordan, Mr Martin said: "I believe the Rwanda effect is impacting Ireland.
"I think that's been growing since the first iteration and publication of that strategy around Rwanda.
"But to me, it's reflective of a policy that's more about the rhetoric and the politics than about having any real impact.
"But it's having a real impact on Ireland now in terms of maybe people being fearful in the UK and maybe that's the impact it was designed to have and they're leaving the UK, taking opportunities, maybe, to come to Ireland across the border to get sanctuary here within the European Union as opposed to the potential of being deported to Rwanda."
Britain's Rwanda bill finally passed both houses of parliament during a late-night sitting this week and is expected to become law within days.
The plan was first unveiled by the British government two years ago when Boris Johnson was prime minister.
However, the first flight was stopped by an injunction by the European Court of Human Rights.
