British-Irish Co-operation
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-24
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

Deputy O'Rourke asked about the EU asylum pact and the common travel area. The European Union asylum pact creates a structure that is positive, firm and robust. It has critics on the left and it has critics on the right. One side is saying we are not going far enough and the other is saying that we are going too far in terms of the returns aspect. We need to protect the common travel area because it is of enormous value to our citizens. Equally, as others have said, it creates challenges in terms of migration flows, particularly with people coming from the UK into Northern Ireland and over the Border. That is reality. The Minister for justice has been in touch with the home secretary. There was a call last week. We discussed this during the UK summit.
I do also believe, in terms of Operation Sonnet and other operations, that there is strengthened monitoring of traffic and people coming across, and that there is checking of public transport and other areas. There will never be a hard Border. There cannot be a hard Border. Deputy Tóibín also raised this issue and made a claim of 85%. I do not have a precise figure on that.

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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