Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-16
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Pádraig O'Sullivan (FF), Cork North-Central

I raise an issue in relation to migration, our deportation process and how it works. I have been in here six and a half years. I have never once objected to an international protection accommodation service, IPAS, centre. I have never once come in here and spoken about migration, if the truth be told. I feel obliged to say that before I make my suggestion or criticism.
At present, when somebody is given a deportation order to leave the country - 4,700 were given in 2025 and approximately 434 of those were enforced - the vast majority of those people in this country who are issued such a notice are expected to voluntarily return themselves.
To be fair, I would say that happens in the majority of the cases I have come across and it is what gardaí and people involved with migration are telling me. However, there is a third cohort of people who are termed "otherwise confirmed". Essentially, those people volunteer the information to the authorities before they leave. However, from speaking with gardaí, a number of people go unaccounted for and a vast amount of the State's time is spent looking for those people. We do not know if they have actually left. My observation is that the Garda's powers and resources are better utilised enforcing the deportation orders and the laws we have, rather than finding out whether somebody has left the country. Gardaí find themselves seeking out people who might have left six months previously as they have no way of tracing that. Next week, at our policy meeting with the Minister for Justice, who has done a good job since taking over, I will raise with him the issue of traceability and what we are going to do to ensure the people who are served with notices are actually leaving. I would love to say they will leave of their own volition, but in cases where they are not how are we going to trace that in future?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-16