Over \u20ac1.6 million was spent on deportation flights in the first four months of 2026.<\/p>\n
Figures from the Department of Justice through the Freedom of Information Act, show \u20ac1,660,931.18 was spent on deportation flights from January 1st to April 15th.<\/p>\n
\u20ac941,288.93 was spent on Enforced Returns conducted via commercial flights, while \u20ac719,642.25 was spent on Charter flights.<\/p>\n
A charter flight is only used when there are a significant number of people of one nationality who have deportation orders and are to be returned.<\/p>\n
A deportation order is issued if an individual is deemed to be living illegally in the State and does not take up an option for voluntary return to their home country.<\/p>\n
There have been four deportation flights so far this year.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, 42 South African nationals were deported from Ireland.<\/p>\n
This includes nine men, 18 women and 15 children, who were all part of family units. The removal flight was provided by Air Partner Ltd at a cost of \u20ac735,000 (ex-VAT) for a return flight.<\/p>\n
Three previous operations this year removed 130 people from the State, including 67 EU citizens on grounds of criminality, Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan said.<\/p>\n
Those deported were accompanied on the flight by garda\u00ed, medical staff, an interpreter and a human rights observer.<\/p>\n
In 2025, six charter operations were conducted, the Department of Justice said, which saw the deportation of 205 people.<\/p>\n
To date this year, 2,108 deportation orders have been signed, and last year, 4,700 were signed, an increase of 96 per cent compared to 2024.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the number of voluntary returns stood at 934. In 2025, 1,616 people availed of voluntary return.<\/p>\n
Voluntary return is an option open to people who have no legal status in Ireland, including those who are refused International Protection. Where this option is taken up, a deportation order is not issued in respect of that person.<\/p>\n
In 2025, six charter flight operations removed 182 people who were subject to deportation orders from the State, and 23 EU nationals were removed on Removal Orders.<\/p>\n
Up to June 12th, 2026, 1,034 people have departed the State through various deportation pathways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over \u20ac1.6 million was spent on deportation flights in the first four months of 2026. Figures from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-511085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}