British-Irish Co-operation
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-24
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Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West

Some 85% of asylum seekers who come into this State are coming from Britain through the North of Ireland. It is by far the biggest pathway for the movement of people in relation to the asylum process. We enjoy a common travel area with Britain but there have been significant problems over the past number of years. That is because there are three separate jurisdictions and not a lot of sharing of information. It means Ireland and Britain cannot control the movement of people and we do not have accurate records as to who is where. The Traditional Unionist Voice, TUV, has indicated recently there needs to be a hard border but that is simply impossible. There are 270 roads going north and south. I got information on Operation Sonnet last week. This is where Border checks are placed North and South. They happened on 30 days last year and there were 184 detections. It is window dressing, in reality. What we need is an Irish sea border for the movement of people. That has been accepted by the Taoiseach, Europe and Britain for the movement of goods as the only real way to be able to track the movement of goods.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-24