Politics

Belfast has received no contact from Dublin over asylum seekers crossing Border into Republic, O’Neill says

Michelle O’Neill says lack of contact from Taoiseach, Tánaiste or McEntee highlights disorganisation of Government

The Government has made no contact with Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O’Neill over the issue of people travelling across the Border and claiming asylum here. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA

Jack Horgan-Jones
Sun Apr 28 2024 - 14:22

The Government has made no contact with Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O’Neill over the issue of people travelling across the Border and claiming asylum here.

Speaking at the launch of the party’s campaign for upcoming local, European and Limerick Mayoral elections in Dublin on Sunday, Ms O’Neill said: “I am the First Minister of the North and I am yet to hear from Helen McEntee, or the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste in terms of the issue that they have highlighted.”

Last week, Ms McEntee told the Oireachtas justice committee that she believed upwards of 80 per cent of people claiming asylum in Ireland were doing so after travelling across the Border with Northern Ireland.

Ms O’Neill said that the lack of contact “highlights and maybe even underlines how disorganised (the Irish Government) are in dealing with this issue.”

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She said that an meeting on Monday between Ms McEntee and her British counterpart, UK Home Secretary James Cleverly, was the appropriate forum to address the issue, as was an upcoming British-Irish intergovernmental council.

[ Ireland will not ‘provide loophole’ for any other country’s migration challenges, says Harris ]

She said a thought out and considered solution should be brought forward which was human rights compliant.

At the same event, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald defended her party’s use of the term “open borders” in discussing migration policy. The party has said it is against open borders, comments which Taoiseach Simon Harris has said should “cause concern”.

Ms McDonald said the party was aiming to make clear what Sinn Féin’s position is. “Sinn Féin is not for open borders, we are for a system that is fair, human rights compliant, efficient.”

[ Home Office Rwanda operation ‘to detain asylum seekers across UK from Monday’ ]

She said she had used the term “open borders” for clarification purposes and had used it since 2007. “Anyone who says Sinn Féin is for open borders is wrong.”

In an interview on RTÉ's This Week programme in April, Ms McDonald said: “I hear people talk about this business of open borders, this seems to be a line that’s peddled by some. There’s no such thing, Ireland doesn’t have open borders. We have a system that is rules-based and based in law and it has to be efficient, it has to be fair, it has to comply with human rights standards, with international law, and it also has to be applied.”

The Dublin Central TD said that Sinn Féin did not agree with signing up to the entirety of the EU’s migration and asylum pact, which the Government is proposing to opt-in to.

“We believe decisions taken on an issue as important and as sensitive as immigration needs to be taken here in Ireland,” she said.

She said Government’s handling of migration has been “chaotic from the get go” and seemed as though the Government was deliberately trying to be disorganised and non-communicative.

Sinn Féin is running 335 local election candidates in each Local Electoral Area, as well as six across all European Parliament constituencies. Ms McDonald said that a Sinn Féin Government would be more organised in addressing migration but did not provide details of a plan on how its policy would address the rising figures seeking asylum.

She said that housing remained the issue that was coming up most frequently on the doorsteps with her candidates. “We are in the grip of a housing crisis that simply will not go away,” she said, saying that a change of Government was now needed.

Ms McDonald criticised protesting outside minister’s homes, saying there was a question of “common decency” which needed to be recognised, adding that the majority of people in political life were decent, civil and respectful even when disagreeing.

Jack Horgan-Jones

Jack Horgan-Jones

Jack Horgan-Jones is a Political Correspondent with The Irish Times

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