Four-fold increase in removal of EU citizens from Ireland in 2025

The number of EU citizens removed from Ireland has more than quadrupled in the last year, a Minister has said.

Colm Brophy, Minister of State for Migration, told the Dail 99 Europeans have been removed from Ireland so far this year, compared to 24 in 2024, describing it as a “large increase”.

Speaking during a debate on migration and Ireland’s asylum system on Wednesday he explained EU citizens can be subject to removal orders under free movement regulations.

Mr Brophy said: “These orders can be made on the grounds that an individual’s personal conduct represents a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat affecting one of the fundamental interests of society.”

But that “a very high bar must be met for a person to be removed under this direction”.

This included the deportation of 23 Romanian citizens who were removed from Ireland by charter flight last month.

Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan told TDs overall he has issued nearly 4,000 deportation orders this year and 1,770 people have been removed from Ireland in 2025.

That figure includes voluntary returns, enforced deportations, deportations on charter flights and deportations on commercial flights.

But Sinn Fein’s Matt Carthy TD criticised the lack of enforcement of deportation orders claiming that “the Minister does not know whether the vast majority subject to deportations have left or remain in the state”.

Adding: “In 2024 for example, there were 2,403 deportation orders, but only 156 confirmed deportations.”

“That’s six and a half percent”.

Throughout the debate members of the government and the opposition condemned the arson attack on a building accommodating international protection applicants in Drogheda, Co Louth, on Friday night.

Mr O’Callaghan described it as “reprehensible” and said it is “important” not to let “extreme behaviour” dictate International Protection policy.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said it was “callous, disgusting and indefensible”.

Describing the attack as an “attempt to burn people alive” and “endanger the lives of small children”.