More than 16,000 people have arrived in Dublin Airport since 2020 without passports.

The total figure does not include the passenger traffic for the Cork, Shannon and Knock airports.

In 2022, the year Covid lockdowns ended, a record 4,968 arrived at Dublin Airport without proper documentation, and the total from 2020 to 2025 was 16,307, figures obtained by Extra.ie from the Justice Department show.

This is despite the fact that the passengers needed passports to board their flights before flying to Ireland. On Sunday, Aontú leader Peadar Tòibín said the figures were incredibly high.

The TD added: ‘This is absolutely shocking. There is no excuse for an individual having travel documentation getting on a flight at one end and not having it when they land at the other end.

‘It’s really important we ensure that when a person gets on a flight in another country, a copy of their travel documents and a photograph is taken, so when they arrive in Dublin there is a back-up copy.

‘I understand that this is being done by Ryanair at the moment but is not enforced as a rule by Government.’

One theory is the travellers are boarding from their destination with a passport but then destroying it on the plane and claiming at immigration that it was ‘lost’.

In February last year, 32 people arrived in Dublin Airport from the Eastern European state of Georgia without passports and seeking asylum.

However, it is believed they may have torn up their passports during the flight and disposed of them in the plane’s toilet. Georgia is listed as a safe country where no minorities are known to be under persecution.

Some 71 people, including at least five children, were deported back to Georgia from Ireland between February and April last year.

Mr Tòibín said the message was clear that the majority of so-called asylum seekers, whom he added were really economic migrants, view Ireland as ‘soft touch’.

It comes after Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan recently told RTÉ Radio that the majority of asylum seekers were not genuine.

Mr Tòibín said: ‘The way the State handles immigration sends out a message that Ireland is a soft touch and offers the least resistance when it comes to enforcement of migrations laws.’

He added that matters are made more complicated by the open border between the Republic and the North as part of the Good Friday Agreement. Mr Tòibín said: ‘The Government needs to come up with a solution to determine how many exactly are entering the State from GB and the North.’

The Justice Department figures, seen by Extra.ie, also reveal that the number of deportations over the past five years is little more than 10% of the number of deportation orders signed by Ministers for Justice in that period. The figures show that between 2020 and 2025 the number of deportation orders signed totalled 9,142.

However, the number of individuals actually deported from the State for the same period was just 969.

The gap between the number of signed deportations and exits from the country has raised questions about the determination of the State to remove people who have no legal right to be here.

Ken O’Flynn, Independent Ireland TD for Cork North-Central, said the figures reveal that the State thinks all people who are the subject of a deportation order are honest and will do as they are instructed.

He said: ‘So the official position of the Irish State is that it hopes they went home.

‘The State signed 4,700 deportation orders last year and carried out 185. That is not enforcement, that is theatre and it is being funded by the taxpayer.

‘Worse, the Department of Justice cannot tell us where the rest of them are. Asked directly how many people under deportation orders have gone missing, it produced no number at all.

‘The public has been asked to accept a lot on immigration. The least they are owed is a government that knows who is in the country.’

A spokesman for the Department of Justice said: ‘It is a central priority for Minister O’Callaghan that Ireland’s immigration system is robust and rules-based.

‘The department and An Garda Síochána are working with airlines on a range of measures to ensure passengers have the required documentation when boarding.

‘This includes delivering in-person training to relevant airline ground-handling staff on immigration requirements and false travel documentation. BMU (Border Management Unit) officials are available 24/7 to assist airlines with any immigration queries. The BMU and An Garda Síochána have an ongoing intelligence-led programme of operations at airplanes to detect passengers who destroyed documents inflight and to identify the point of embarkation of undocumented passengers.’

The spokesman added: ‘Last year the BMU carried out over 7,400 doorstop operations at Dublin Airport. So far this year over 3,400 have been conducted.’