Peadar Tóibín
Question:244. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Justice how many vehicles, trucks and containers have been searched for each of the past five years at each port for potential smuggled migrants. [2137/24]
View answerThursday, 18 January 2024
Questions (244)
Written answers
Maintaining the integrity of the immigration system, involves robust controls to prevent illegal entry.
People smuggling is the facilitated, irregular movement of people across borders for a financial or other benefit.
While distinct from human trafficking, it is exploitative of vulnerable people and as we have seen, very often the way in which they are smuggled into countries places them in mortal danger.
That is why in 2021 our legislation was strengthened to combat people smuggling both into Ireland and into other countries (including EU Member States and parties to the UN Protocol against people smuggling).
The Criminal Justice (Smuggling of Persons) Act 2021 widened the range of scenarios covered by our laws, including intentionally assisting entry, transit or presence where the person knows or has reasonable cause to believe that it is in breach of specified immigration law provisions.
The penalties provided reflect the seriousness with which this crime is taken with a penalty of up to 10 years for assisting unlawful entry into, transit across or presence in the State or in a designated State or for the provision of fraudulent documents used or intended to be used for people smuggling.
The Act also helps facilitate the cooperation required to continue to work together with our colleagues in the EU and the UK to combat smugglers.
Statistics are not available on the number of searches carried at each port of entry.