Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has said he is “reassured” over proposed Irish legislation on returning asylum seekers from Ireland to the UK.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee is to bring a proposal to Cabinet on Tuesday around “returning” asylum seekers who had arrived in Ireland from the UK.
Ireland’s deputy premier Micheal Martin said he had briefed British officials at the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference in London on Monday.
He moved to assure them that the legislation would deal with the repercussions of a decision by Ireland’s High Court, which found that the basis for designating the UK a “safe country” for asylum purposes was contrary to EU law.
Mr Martin said that the decision related to an agreement on “returning” asylum seekers to the UK – and vice versa – that was struck between the two governments after Brexit.
“So basically, it is restoring the situation to where it was before the High Court case of last March. That’s, in essence, what has been proposed,” Mr Martin said at a joint press event in London with Mr Heaton-Harris.
“If this legislation is, as I believe it is and I’ve been assured it is, just setting us back in time to where we were and what we were dealing with, then I’m comfortable with that,” Mr Heaton-Harris said.
“But we are fully behind implementing our Rwanda scheme.”
The two governments have been involved in a row over a reported increase in recent months in the number of people applying for asylum in Ireland who had crossed the Northern Ireland border.
Mr Martin said that Ireland’s Attorney General had advised that legislation would be needed “to create a proper statutory basis for an agreement that we earlier had”.
“The High Court struck down the basis upon which we had we arrived at an agreement with the British government after Brexit. There was an arrangement, an agreement in terms of managing this issue, and these agreements have to be mutual.
“No one country could say ‘we’re sending back’ if there’s not a reciprocal agreement, and it works both ways – so the United Kingdom could send people back to the Republic who might have originated here.
“That’s the legislative backdrop underpinning all of this.”
He said that both governments are committed to working together to deal with Common Travel Area issues including migration.
“From our perspective, and I’m very clear that the Common Travel Area, generally that framework has been very beneficial to Irish citizens and United Kingdom citizens, and it covers a lot, including migration.”
He added: “The Common Travel Area, there will be ongoing discussions around that and it’s been overall beneficial to Irish citizens and to UK citizens and we want to maintain those benefits. I think the optimal way to deal with issues around migration is to continue discussion in the context of the Common Travel framework.”