TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR has said that he is in favour of processing applications for irregular migrants in countries outside of the European Union.

However, speaking to The Journal at the European People’s Party in Romania today, he said he did not want to “create a false impression that this would or is likely to result in a dramatic or sudden decrease in the numbers” of asylum seekers coming to Ireland. 

The Taoiseach yesterday defended proposed changes to the European Union’s asylum policy which have been described by some as similar to the UK’s controversial deal with Rwanda. 

The policy has emerged today as a key proposal from the centre-right European People’s Party, of which Fine Gael is a member, ahead of the European Parliament elections in June. 

Under the proposals, deals would be made with non-EU countries allowing for the deportation of asylum seekers to “safe” third countries where their applications would be processed instead. 

Varadkar denied that the move is the European version of what the UK is proposing with Rwanda, stating it is something very different.

Under the UK’s deal with Rwanda, some asylum seekers arriving in the UK would be sent to Rwanda to have their applications processed with no right to return to the UK. 

Labour’s Aodhán Ó Ríordáin said the plan is “genuinely disgusting”, stating that it is “pandering in the worst way to the wave of racist sentiment sweeping Europe”.

Questioned further on Europe’s plan on migration by The Journal this morning, the Taoiseach said a huge number of people who enter the European Union irregularly pass through countries around the edge of the European Union.

Deals and financial packages

“We want to make deals with those countries to help us secure our borders better, and in some cases to process applications in those countries, but only on the basis that it will be compliant with the Geneva Conventions and the European Convention of Human Rights, and we made that very clear as a party,” he added. 

When asked about what countries Europe would do deals with, Varadkar said he did not want to list off the countries, as agreements were still to be reached.

“But certainly, the principle behind it is that there are countries of transit. People who entered the European Union regularly, will generally pass through those transit countries before getting into the European Union. We want to come to agreements with them, financial packages with them, for example, to help us to secure our borders around the European Union,” said Varadkar. 

He highlighted that Italy already has an agreement with Albania, adding that there is also an agreement with Tunisia and the possibility of an agreement to Mauritania.

Varadkar said he wanted to be clear that this does not relate to legal migration, such as people coming to Ireland through work permits or visas.

“We’re talking about people who’ve entered the European Union irregularly and made their way across Europe to Ireland.

“But I don’t want to create a false impression that this would or is likely to result in a dramatic or sudden decrease in the numbers of people who enter Ireland regularly because the percentage of the total that come to our shores is actually very small,” he said.

With reporting by Jane Matthews at the EPP Conference in Bucharest