Up to 90% of Ireland’s asylum seekers may have entered from Northern Ireland, data shows

The River Fane, which tracks part of the border between Ireland (left) and Northern Ireland (right). Nearly 300 roads cross the common travel area. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/ View image in fullscreen The River Fane, which tracks part of the border between Ireland (left) and Northern Ireland (right). Nearly 300 roads cross the common travel area. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/ Up to 90% of Ireland’s asylum seekers may have entered from Northern Ireland, data shows Figures suggest common travel area being exploited in both directions, but particularly UK to Ireland Up to 90% of asylum seekers in Ireland may have entered the country via the Northern Ireland land border in the last three years, figures suggest. Irish government data shows the common travel area (CTA) is being exploited in both directions but suggests it may be more popular for those seeking asylum in Ireland than in the UK. The UK Home Office revealed overnight that in the past year it had apprehended more than 900 “immigration offenders” abusing the open land border. Data from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in Dublin, however, showed 16,600 people had sought asylum at an airport or port. Significant numbers in that cohort were thought to have travelled from Great Britain to Ireland via a flight or ferry to Belfast. The CTA has come under renewed scrutiny this week after a knife attack in Belfast on Monday. The suspect, Hadi Alodid, a 30-year-old Sudanese refugee, has been charged with attempted murder. The attack triggered two nights of violence after it emerged Alodid had travelled from Sudan to Paris and then Dublin before taking a bus to Belfast where he claimed asylum in 2023. Police reinforcements were sent from Great Britain to Northern Ireland on Thursday. Before 2019, the number of people seeking asylum in Ireland was relatively small, about 5,000, commensurate with the experience of a small country on the farthest outreaches of Europe. That number grew significantly between 2022 and 2024, when it peaked at 18,500. Just 10% of people applied for asylum at an airport or port, while 90% made a first-time application in person at the International Protection Office in Dublin. In 2025 and 2026 to date, the proportion of asylum seekers applying at the office in person were 88% and 90% respectively. Without physical checks on the Irish border, neither the UK nor Irish governments can verify the precise numbers of people crossing the border illegally, but in 2024 Ireland’s then justice minister, Helen McEntee, said publicly that 80% were coming over the land border.