Minister McEntee increases penalties for carriers who fail to ensure passengers have appropriate travel documentation

The Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee T.D. has today (Monday) announced increases to fines imposed on carriers who do not comply with their obligations to ensure passengers have appropriate travel documentation.

The Courts, Civil Law, Criminal Law and Superannuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2024 increases the fines on carriers to a maximum of €5,000 from the previous maximum of €3,000. Minister McEntee has today signed two orders to give effect to these increased fines which will apply to carriers, such as airlines and ferry companies, from 12 August 2024.

Earlier this year, Minister McEntee initiated a review of Ireland’s carrier liability standards as the level of fines had remained unchanged since the commencement of the legislation in 2003. This review recommended an increase in penalties for carriers who do not take sufficient action to ensure passengers travelling to Ireland have appropriate travel documentation upon embarkment. The increases take account of inflation and bring Ireland into closer alignment with the penalties imposed on carriers across Europe.

Speaking today, Minister McEntee said:

The Minister intends to introduce further measures, including guidelines to assist carriers and consideration of the feasibility of a dynamic fines model which recognises carriers who strongly enforce documentation requirements, at a later date.

Minister McEntee has taken a number of actions to reduce the number of people arriving without documents and strengthen the immigration system as a whole.

These measures include introducing visa requirements to travel to Ireland from a number of additional states and the expansion of accelerated processing of International Protection applications.

Minister McEntee has also provided specific funding for the Garda Airport Liaison Officer programme, and increased resources for the Border Management Unit (BMU) and the International Protection Office.

BMU and Garda National Immigration Bureau carry out doorstop operations at airplanes to target those who destroyed documents inflight. These are intelligence led operations based on trends observed by immigration officials, who will conduct initial document checks as passengers disembark an aircraft in order to establish a person’s identity and nationality. Approximately 4,500 ‘doorstop’ operations were carried out in the first half of 2024.

Last year, saw a reduction of one third in the number of persons arriving at Dublin Airport without the correct documentation. The numbers arriving without the correct documentation for 2024 are on-course to approximately be 50% of that in 2022.

In addition, An Garda Síochána have arrested 115 people in the first half of 2024 for arriving without appropriate documentation and a significant number have been convicted.

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Notes for editors:

• Carrier liability is provided for in section 2(1) of the Immigration Act 2003 which places obligations on carriers to ensure that passengers travelling to the State are in possession of a valid travel document that establishes the person’s identity and nationality, and that they have the appropriate visa if required.

• A carrier that contravenes this provision is guilty of an offence, and where a contravention by the carrier relates to more than one passenger, each case constitutes a separate offence.

• The fines payable by carriers in such instances were increased by way of the Courts, Civil Law, Criminal Law and Superannuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2024. Minister McEntee has today signed two separate orders to give effect to these changes:

o The Courts, Civil Law, Criminal Law and Superannuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2024 (Commencement of Part 4 and section 14(d)) Order 2024 commences Part 4 of the Act to increase fines.

o The Immigration Act 2003 (Carrier Liability) Regulations 2024 updates the forms used by An Garda Síochána when issuing such fines.

• The effect of these changes is to increase the fines payable by carriers on summary conviction to a maximum of €5,000 from the previous maximum of €3,000.

• The Courts, Civil Law, Criminal Law and Superannuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2024 provides that carriers which make a payment of €2,500 within 28 days will avoid prosecution for an offence under the Act. An increase from the previous payment of €1,500.

• Carrier liability may apply in the case of a passenger who has arrived into the State, from locations outside the Common Travel Area:

o Without the required Irish visa

o Without a passport or equivalent document

o With a false passport or equivalent document

o Is an imposter using a genuine document

Annual carrier liability receipts

Year Amount

2019 €1,003,470

2020 €624,000

2021 €826,500

2022 €1,102,500

2023 €1,476,000

2024 (Q1 only) €345,000

Total €5,377,470

Additional information on actions taken by the Department of Justice in the area of immigration:

1. Suspended visa free travel to Ireland for refugees who are holders of a Convention Travel Document issued by another State, added countries to the visa required list, and will be taking more measures to clamp down on visa free travel form countries with significant number of International Protection applicants.

2. Accelerated processes have now been introduced for:

a. 15 safe countries of origin - Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Egypt, Georgia, India, Kosovo, Malawi, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Morocco, Serbia and South Africa;

b. applicants who have received protection elsewhere in Europe;

c. citizens of the countries which provide the greatest number of applicants in the previous quarter (at the moment, Nigeria and Jordan).

3. Provided specific funding to An Garda Síochána for a programme to assign Garda Airline Liaison Officers to European Transport Hubs to prevent irregular migration.

4. Assigned additional resources in Dublin Airport to carry out ‘doorstop’ operation on flights that pose risks of irregular migration. 4,500 ‘doorstop’ operations were carried out so far this year.

5. An Garda Síochána have arrested 115 people in the first half of 2024 for arriving without appropriate documentation and a significant number have been convicted.

6. Last year, saw a reduction of one third in the number of persons arriving at Dublin Airport without the correct documentation. The numbers arriving without the correct documentation for 2024 are on-course to approximately be 50% of that in 2022.

7. The Border Management Unit continues to provide training and 24-hour advice to Airlines on how to identify and deal with immigration abuse.

8. There has been a significant investment in speeding up processing of International Protection applications; including doubling the staff assigned to the International Protection Office and the opening of a new processing location at Citywest in April of this year. This investment has led to the number of decisions issuing increasing threefold and will increase further this year.

9. The number of deportation orders signed up to 9 August 2024 (1175) has increased by 90% for the same period in 2023 (617 up to 11 August 2023)

10. Enforced deportations are up 125% and voluntary returns are up 171% on the same period last year; both more than doubled. The overall number of returns has increased by 132% for the same period in 2023.

11. Charter flights will be required to support the removal process, commencing later this year; a procurement process for this is well advanced.

12. The process to release up to 100 more Gardaí to support immigration enforcement activities is advancing and will be substantially completed within the next 12 months. Additional administrative immigration work at Dublin Airport has been transferred to the Border Management Unit and 80% of immigration registration duties nationwide have transferred to the Department of Justice from An Garda Síochána.

13. Engagement between the Department of Justice, the UK Home Office, An Garda Síochána and the Police Service of Northern Ireland around protecting the Common Travel Area (CTA) from abuses is ongoing.

14. Border Management Unit (BMU), Garda National immigration Bureau (GNIB) and colleagues in the UK Border Force and Immigration Enforcement, engage via joint operations and intelligence-sharing to respond to current trends of CTA travel and suspected areas of abuse.

15. Immigration investigations and enforcement action are being undertaken on a daily basis by the GNIB who work closely with their counterparts in UK Border Force and Immigration Enforcement in Joint operations to detect and tackle abuses of the CTA. Operation Sonnet is a Garda operation targeting abuse of the CTA and has been ongoing for some time. It targets people attempting to abuse the CTA by illegally crossing the Irish border from Northern Ireland.

16. The Courts, Civil Law, Criminal Law and Superannuation Act brings forward provisions in response to a High Court judgment to allow for the designation of safe third countries in relation to inadmissible applications; and allows for increased penalties for carriers who are found to not have conducted appropriate checks from €3,000 to €5,000.

17. Ireland is responding to changing patterns of migration in recent years, which only reinforces the need for the EU Asylum and Migration Pact to allow us work with our European partners and to benefit from funding to help us deal with this issue. Without it, Ireland would be isolated and numbers of people coming here would certainly increase.