Photo credit: Irish Mirror
A tender for a new charter plane has been approved to deport irregular immigrants in Ireland.
Irish Mirror reports that Helen McEntee, the Justice Minister, has announced that the contract for the aircraft will be signed next week. According to the department, charter flights will significantly increase the capacity to conduct more enforced deportations.
A spokesman of the minister said it is “essential” that charter flights are available to enforce deportation orders when required. This will provide the State with a means of removing significant numbers of people to specific destinations using a single aircraft.
Commercial flights are currently used for enforced deportations. These flights will continue to be used when the number of people returning to a country is not significant enough to use the chartered plane.
The minister has asked her officials to devise a plan to operationalize the charter plane quickly and proceed with this work. Over the past year, 1,792 asylum seekers received a deportation order, a 140 percent increase from 2023. Ninety-eight of these have been forcibly deported, while 637 have voluntarily left.
