Ireland-UK asylum seeker row: Irish PM insists Westminster must honour current agreement
Ireland’s prime minister has insisted the UK must respect an existing arrangement between the two countries to take back asylum seekers.
Simon Harris told Sky News the UK must honour a deal that has been in place since 2020 as a row escalates over the Irish government’s new plans to return to the UK asylum seekers who cross the border into the Republic from Northern Ireland.
Irish justice minister Helen McEntee told a parliamentary committee last week that more than 80% of recent arrivals in Ireland came via the land border with Northern Ireland.
The UK government has said it will not take back asylum seekers who cross the border into Ireland “until the EU accepts that we can send them back to France”.
The number of migrants crossing the English Channel from the continent in small boats during the first four months of the year reached its highest ever level at the weekend.
On Tuesday morning, Irish PM Mr Harris told Sky News: “There is already an agreement in place between Ireland and Britain since 2020.
“What we’re doing is giving legal clarity in relation to that agreement which will allow us to designate the UK as a safe country again.
“It’s also very important for people in Britain to understand that this is a two-way agreement.
“This is to ensure that refugees can be sent in both directions if their application is inadmissible.
“We also have a legitimate expectation that agreements between our two countries are honoured.”
Rishi Sunak’s spokesman said there are “operational arrangements” between the UK and Ireland but insisted there is “not a legal obligation to accept the return of asylum seekers and under those operational arrangements no asylum seekers have been returned to the UK”.
“It’s up to the UK government who we do and do not accept into the country,” he added.
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Irish PM: ‘UK must stick to migrant agreement’
The row between the two countries comes as the UK government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda came into law last week.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister and foreign secretary Micheal Martin said the threat of deportation to Rwanda was causing “fearful” migrants to head for Ireland instead of the UK.
Mr Harris said on Sunday Ireland would “not provide a loophole for anybody else’s migration challenges”.
He added on Tuesday that the largest percentage of people coming to Ireland illegally recently has been from Nigeria so last week they brought in fast-track applications for people from Nigeria.
“We have every right to have our own migration policy,” he told Sky News.
“People have every expectation that it would be enforced, that it would be firm, that it would be rules-based.
“And I think we also all have a legitimate expectation that agreements between two countries are honoured.”
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‘Will the UK accept migrants back?’
A major operation by the Home Office to detain migrants across the UK in preparation for their deportation to Rwanda has begun “weeks earlier than expected”.
But it has been reported that more than half of the asylum seekers allocated for removal to Rwanda cannot be found, according to the government’s own impact assessment.
Ministers from the UK and Ireland met in London on Monday as part of a planned conference, involving Mr Martin and the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris.
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Politics
Rishi Sunak apologises to infected blood scandal victims and says it is ‘day of shame for British state’
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has offered a “wholehearted and unequivocal” apology to the victims of the infected blood scandal, saying it was a “day of shame for the British state”.
Mr Sunak said the findings of the Infected Blood Inquiry’s final report should “shake our nation to its core”, as he promised to pay “comprehensive compensation to those infected and those affected”, adding: “Whatever it costs to deliver this scheme, we will pay it.”
The report from the inquiry’s chair Sir Brian Langstaff blamed “successive governments, the NHS, and blood services” for failures that led to 30,000 people being “knowingly” infected with either HIV or Hepatitis C through blood products. Around 3,000 people have now died.
The prime minister said for any government apology to be “meaningful”, it had to be “accompanied by action”.
Politics live: Thatcher’s health secretary ‘disparaging’ to infected blood victims
Speaking in the Commons, Mr Sunak called it a “calamity”, saying the report showed a “decades-long moral failure at the heart of our national life”, as he condemned the actions of the NHS, civil service and ministers – “institutions in which we place our trust failed in the most harrowing and devastating way”.
The prime minister said they “failed this country”, adding: “Time and again, people in positions of power and trust had the chance to stop the transmission of those infections. Time and again, they failed to do so.
“I want to make a whole-hearted and unequivocal apology for this terrible injustice.”
Victims and campaigners outside Central Hall in Westminster.
Pic: PA
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Pointing to key findings in the report – from the destruction of documents through to failures over screening – Mr Sunak said there had been “layer upon layer of hurt endured across decades”.
He also apologised for the “institutional refusal to face up to these failings and worse, to deny and even attempt to cover them up”, adding: “This is an apology from the state to every single person impacted by this scandal.
“It did not have to be this way. It should never have been this way. And on behalf of this and every government stretching back to the 1970s, I am truly sorry.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer also apologised for his party’s part in the scandal, telling the Commons: “I want to acknowledge to every single person who has suffered that in addition to all of the other failings, politics itself failed you.
“That failure applies to all parties, including my own. There is only one word, sorry.”
Read more:
100 faces of the infected blood scandal
Analysis: Report makes for difficult reading – but vindicates victims
The day as it happens as ‘chilling’ cover-up laid bare
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Infected blood victims ‘betrayed’ by NHS
In his report, released earlier on Monday, Sir Brian issued 12 recommendations – including an immediate compensation scheme and ensuring anyone who received a blood transfusion before 1996 was urgently tested for Hepatitis C.
He also called for compensation – something Mr Sunak said would come and would be outlined in the Commons on Tuesday.
But speaking to Sky News’ Sarah-Jane Mee, he warned the “disaster” of the scandal still wasn’t over, saying: “More than 3,000 have died, and deaths keep on happening week after week.
“I’d like people to take away the fact that this is not just something which happened. It is happening.”
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Inquiry chair Sir Brian Langstaff spoke to Sky’s Sarah-Jane Mee.
Sir Brian said what had happened to the victims was “no accident”, adding: “People put their trust in the doctors and the government to keep them safe. That trust was betrayed.
“And then the government compounded the agony by repeatedly saying that no wrong had been done.”
But he hoped the report would ensure “these mistakes are not repeated”.
He told Sky News: “We don’t want another 30,000 people to go into hospital and come out with infections which were avoidable, which are life-shattering, which were no accident.
“And we don’t want the government to end up being defensive about them – but instead to be candid [and] forthcoming in the ways which I’ve just suggested.”
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