{"id":550553,"date":"2026-07-15T07:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T07:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/550553\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T07:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T07:21:09","slug":"deportation-flight-to-south-africa-cost-more-than-e1m-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/550553\/","title":{"rendered":"Deportation flight to South Africa cost more than \u20ac1m \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The State paid more than \u20ac1 million for a single deportation flight when returning 42 adults and children from Ireland to South Africa<\/a> in June. <\/p>\n

Figures supplied by the Department of Justice to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) show that the cost of chartering the aircraft for the flight on June 19th amounted to \u20ac904,000 with an additional \u20ac38,000 in costs for two medical personnel, a flight manager, and a human rights observer.<\/p>\n

The figure does not include the pay, expenses, accommodation and overtime for the 84 garda\u00ed \u2013 two for each of the people being deported \u2013 who escorted the deportees to South Africa. That additional expenditure has brought the overall figure for the single flight to more than \u20ac1 million. <\/p>\n

The cost works out at about \u20ac24,000 for each of the 42 passengers. <\/p>\n

In correspondence with the PAC, the secretary general of the Department of Justice, Doncha O\u2019Sullivan, supplied no figures for the Garda costs, saying they were covered by the separate Garda budgetary allocation, as were interpreter costs. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan was responding to a request from the PAC for specific details on costs and arrangements for deportations. <\/p>\n

In all, almost \u20ac4 million has been spent on the 10 deportation flights chartered since February 2025. Three have been to Georgia; two have been to Poland and Lithuania; one has been to Romania; one to Pakistan; one to Nigeria; and two have been to South Africa. <\/p>\n

In all, 377 people have been returned to their country of origin. A total of 988 garda\u00ed have been involved in the operations, an average of 2.6 for each deportee. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Pork sausages served on flight deporting 24 men from Ireland to PakistanOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan added that the department plans to seek reimbursement of 75 per cent all the costs associated with chartered and scheduled deportation flights under a specific EU fund and said it had received \u20ac1.84 million under this fund to date. <\/p>\n

The rationale for the number of Garda escorts on the flight is linked to the risk posed by the passengers, said O\u2019Sullivan in the correspondence.<\/p>\n

\u201cA deportation is a forced return and persons who are being returned will often not co-operate with the process \u2013 hence the need for a higher number of escorts.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, a higher number of returnees with criminal backgrounds will warrant a higher number of Garda escorts, as will a higher number of adult returnees.<\/p>\n

\u201cA backup team is required to facilitate the smooth running of the operational elements of the charter in the case of an unanticipated event, such as a Garda escort being injured or if there is a medical emergency. The primary responsibility of the Garda escorts is to ensure that the return is conducted in a safe, calm, courteous and professional manner, especially when there are children and family groups on flights,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The costs of chartering planes has increased significantly during 2026. The fee for chartering an aircraft to deport 63 people, escorted by 133 garda\u00ed, to South Africa in February this year was \u20ac719,000. <\/p>\n

Just four months later, in June, the cost of chartering the aircraft for a similar trip to South Africa with substantially fewer passengers on board (42 deportees and 84 garda\u00ed) was almost \u20ac200,000 more expensive at \u20ac904,000. <\/p>\n

The Department of Justice has not responded to queries on why the cost of chartering aircraft increased significantly during the course of 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The State paid more than \u20ac1 million for a single deportation flight when returning 42 adults and children…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,7038,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-550553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-irish-politics","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550553","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=550553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}