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Gardaí to be deployed to border with Northern Ireland amid row with UK over asylum seekers

Rishi Sunak says he is ‘not interested in taking back asylum seekers

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Gardaí are to be redeployed to frontline duties, including the border, to police asylum seekers entering the country via Northern Ireland, as relations between Ireland and the UK have significantly worsened over the issue.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee is to push ahead with new laws aimed at ­allowing the deportation of asylum-­seekers to the UK – even though the British government has indicated it will not accept them.

Up to 100 gardaí will be deployed to frontline and border duties to focus on applicants who could have applied for status in the UK travelling instead to the Republic, and also on deportations.

A major diplomatic spat has developed, with the UK prime minister Rishi Sunak standing firm against Ireland’s bid to send asylum seekers back to the UK when they have passed through there first. Such an arrangement has already in place between the two countries since Brexit, but it has never been used in practice.

Ministers believe the UK position is “posturing” but also concede they have handed the Conservative Party a pre-election gift by suggesting its threat to send migrants to Rwanda is leading to an influx of people leaving the UK for Ireland.

It comes as a document suggests the UK has lost contact with thousands of asylum seekers there who are eligible to be sent to Rwanda under Mr Sunak’s controversial new scheme to effectively outsource asylum seekers to the African country while they await a decision on their status.

He added: “It’s very important everybody understands that. There’s already an agreement in place between Ireland and Britain. What we’re doing is giving legal clarity in relation to that agreement, which will allow us to designate the UK as a safe country again.

“It’s also very important for people in Britain to understand that this is a two-way agreement. This is to ensure that refugees can be sent in both directions if their application is inadmissible.”

Mr Harris emphasised the value of a close relationship with Britain and of protecting the Common Travel Area.

“I had an excellent engagement with the British prime minister upon taking office, I think there’s been really good work done on British-Irish, Irish-British relations over the last period of time, I think the Windsor Framework marks a really important point, and obviously enabled the restoration of the institutions in Northern Ireland,” the Taoiseach said.

“Britain is our nearest neighbour, a close relationship with Britain is extremely important to me as Taoiseach, and is something that I absolutely value. But I also value the Common Travel Area. I also value, as the Northern Ireland Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris said yesterday, Britain and Ireland working together to protect the Common Travel Area, to protect it from abuses, to make sure that the rules of Common Travel Area are applied.