Paying asylum applicants to leave a “humiliating admission of enforcement collapse

Independent TD for Offaly Carol Nolan has described proposals to offer asylum seekers a voluntary return grant of €2,500, or €10,000 for a family, if they withdraw their pending claims for international protection, as “a bribe for bogus applicants that should be immediately withdrawn.”

She was responding to reports that Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan has signed an order increasing the existing voluntary return grant, which will be available to people in the asylum system, before September 28th, who are awaiting a decision on their status:

“What this tells me is that Government has effectively given up all pretence at enforcement and instead it has now resorted to financial bribes to try and get these people, who have no right to be here, out,” said Deputy Nolan.

“It is being dressed up as yet another ‘get tough’ measure to incentivise people to leave the State voluntarily. But that is absolutely ludicrous. It is an admission of failure on an epic scale.”

“Once again, the Irish Government has sent out the message to the world that it just cannot enforce its deportation or asylum processes. It is an astonishing admission of weakness.”

“Government and indeed the EU have tied themselves in bureaucratic knots on this issue because they have placed all of the obligations on states to accommodate applications that should never been tolerated in the first place.”

“If significant money is going to be allocated, let it be allocated to ramping up enforcement personnel and securing our borders, not on tantalising grants to applicants who must think we are the biggest shower of eejits in the EU,” concluded Deputy Nolan.