The Irish Independent’s view: Deportations form a difficult but necessary strand of any immigration policy

In December 1989, French prime minister Michel Rocard gave a landmark TV interview in which he said: “We cannot accommodate all the misery of the world.” He added that France would remain “a country of asylum” as it had been for centuries when people of many nationalities, including fleeing Irish rebels, found refuge. The reforming French socialist politician’s words are often quoted throughout the European Union when debate focuses on immigration.

Rocard has been frequently cited in recent years by France’s embattled president Emmanuel Macron as he grapples with the issue 36 years on. The words come to mind in Ireland now as we learn of a threefold increase in the number of deportation orders issued so far this year compared with the same period last year. This signals a deliberate hardening of government policy.



A total of 1,008 deportation orders were issued between January and last month. This compares with 305 in the same period last year. Up until the end of last month, 446 people departed the State, and 59 of these left via enforced deportations.

A charter flight in February took 32 Georgian dep­ortees to Tbilisi at a cost of more than €100,000. We understand this was probably the first in a number of such flights expected this year. We trust the flight costs can in future be trimmed and that such actions will be used only in extremis.

Rocard is recalled by some in France, and across Europe, as the ‘best president France never had’ Migration has been an emotive topic for millennia, and in treating it we must always choose our words with great care. Compassion and charity must inform how we respond to people who are often in great distress, have travelled extraordinary distances in very adverse circumstances and badly need help. We have migration obligations under EU and other international laws.

We have moral obligations as members of the human race. But we must also be pragmatic because any effective immigration system has to ultimately include deportations. Otherwise, the support system risks being seriously undermined on many fronts.

The absence of deportations, including the pile-up of large numbers of unenforced deportation orders, harms Irish citizens’ confidence about government control in a very sensitive area. This in turn aids a tiny minority of anti-immigrant bigots, allowing them to sometimes wield malign influence out of proportion to their numbers in Irish society generally. It also generates reasonable feelings of unfairness among asylum-seekers who genuinely need our help.

Part of Rocard’s argument in 1989 was that any nation’s capability to help asylum-seekers and migrants is finite, so it is important not to create false expectations among those seeking assistance. Rocard is recalled by some in France, and across Europe, as the “best president France never had”. His summation of the need for pragmatism in any asylum policy, so that it can be effective, remains undeniable.

.