Taoiseach Simon Harris has said he believes legislation is necessary to"fix" the situation where people seek asylum in Ireland having previously been granted it in the UK.
He added:"This is all about fairness. Our migration system is about people fleeing persecution. It's not about a situation where you can be living safely in another country, have status potentially in that country, and then come to our country and seek immigration status. That's the piece we have to fix."
We need your consent to load this comcast-player contentWe use comcast-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences "What we don't need is right wing Tory rhetoric. What we do need is effective solutions. And what that means is ... greater cooperation and collaboration between the gardaí and the PSNI. It means greater cooperation and collaboration between the justice minister and the British Home Secretary. My colleague, the Minister of Justice is due to meet the Home Secretary next week," he added.
"It also has to be one about borders, about the rules, about the borders of the European Union and about how there's faster processing times and I think Minister McEntee has done a lot in this space," he said.Meanwhile, a coalition of migrant and refugee rights organisations have expressed concern over Ms McEntee's comment that 80% of recent asylum seekers are coming here through Northern Ireland.
In a statement STAD said that as the Oireachtas considers the EU Migration Pact, and with local and European elections approaching, it was"more important than ever that conversations around international protection are careful, accurate and reasoned".