CIANAN BRENNAN
Sunday July 23, 2023
All told, 1,781 people were refused permission to land at Dublin Airport between January and April. Picture: Barry Cronin
Just under 1,300 people were refused permission to land at Dublin Airport in the first four months of 2023 due to their either having false papers or no travel documents whatsoever.
Some 1,010 of those who were refused presented to immigration officials at the airport with no documents, new figures from the Department of Justice show.
The most common countries of origin for those travellers were Georgia, Somalia, China, Kuwait, and Syria.
Meanwhile, in terms of the 281 people presenting with false or forged travel documents, the most common nationalities were Zimbabwe, Albania, Iran, Algeria, and China, the department said.
All told, 1,781 people were refused permission to land at Dublin Airport between January and April.
A further 783 people were denied entry at ports of entry other than Dublin Airport between January 2022 and April 2023.
Refusal to land does not necessarily mean that incoming travellers are refused access to the country, however.
Of the 10,226 people refused permission to land across the country in that 16-month period, 1,630 of them were returned to their point of origin, just under 16%.
Previously, secretary general of the Department of Justice Oonagh McPhillips told the Public Accounts Committee that people refused permission to land will typically seek asylum under Ireland’s international protection obligations and engage with an immigration officer.
She said that people travelling under false documents "have a tendency” to destroy those papers in order to prevent their being charged with the offence of possessing such false documents.
Separately, the department said that the vast majority of judicial reviews taken against the minister each year relate to immigration matters.
Some 448 such immigration-related court cases were taken in 2022, which was in fact a drop of 13% from the 517 taken in 2021, the final year of the Covid pandemic.
“While legal challenges may be issued in respect of all areas of immigration, the largest number issued was in respect of citizenship applications at 166,” a spokesperson for the department said, adding that this represents a 30% fall from the figure seen in 2021.
They said that 88 judgements in such immigration cases were delivered in 2022, with the department prevailing in 63% of them.
“All legal challenges are analysed by the department to inform policy, procedural and, where necessary, legislative changes to ensure applicant rights are respected while reducing risk and ensuring that legal cases can be handled most effectively,” they said.
“In addition, the department has increased its in-house legal expertise to provide on-demand advice to decision-makers and advice on cases of concern,” the spokesperson added.
They said that the department now boasts a “dedicated legal helpdesk” for providing decisionmakers with “structured access to legal expertise”.
“Given the breadth and complexity of the issues involved, training is also provided to decisionmakers with the overall objective of operating in line with constitutional, European and international obligations.”