Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has suggested that raising financial incentives for asylum seekers who choose to leave Ireland voluntarily might help improve the efficiency of the immigration system, reports Breaking News.
His comments followed a report on Saturday stating that Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan plans to raise the payment to €2,500 for individuals and €10,000 for families who opt to depart voluntarily.
When questioned about the report by The Irish Times during a Fine Gael conference for small and medium-sized enterprises in Carlow, Mr Donohoe responded.
“I understand Minister O’Callaghan is looking at this at the moment,” he said, reports Breaking News.
“We know that deportations do play an important role in relation to having a fair and efficient migration system in place. But it’s also costly, it also takes a lot of time to actually make them happen. I understand what Minister O’Callaghan is doing is looking at is there other ways in which we could ensure that those who will be leaving Ireland at some point in the future, do so in a more timely and a more efficient way,” reports Breaking News.
“This is a decision that he’s able to make inside his own budget. We, overall, as a Government believe that having an open economy and an open society is enormously positive.It’s really important for the growth of our economy, really important for our society to continue to grow, but, at the same time, we do need to have migration rules that are clear and well implemented, and this appears to be a way in which that can be further delivered,” reports Breaking News.
Minister Donohoe also made clear that the Government has not yet made any firm decisions regarding potential changes to the income limits for qualifying for the carer’s allowance.
On Saturday, The Irish Independent reported that changes to the carer’s allowance system are expected to be a major feature of the upcoming budget, with reforms likely to allow thousands more people to qualify for the payment.
“I can tell you no decisions have been made with regard to the budget,” he said, reports Breaking News.
“And Minister (Jack) Chambers as Minister for Public Expenditure is now engaged in negotiations with all ministers in relation to specific matters, but how we support carers has always been a key focus of budgets that have been done,” reports Breaking News.
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