Council of the European Union Decision: Motions
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-30
============================================================

Cormac Devlin (FF), Dún Laoghaire

I welcome the motion and I thank the Minister of State for bringing it before us. Ireland's return arrangements with Nigeria date back to 2001. They were never ratified by Nigeria and it depends on goodwill. This agreement replaces goodwill with a legal obligation. Last year, Nigeria was the second largest source of protection applications here with 1,940, or almost one in seven, applications. Across the European Union, Ireland is one of the four main destinations for Nigerian applicants so this agreement matters more to Ireland than most member states. It commits Nigeria to readmit its own nationals who have no right to remain in Europe. It works both ways though and it includes safeguards on human rights, data protection and monitoring. It sits within a wider EU partnership with Nigeria on investment, trade and legal migration.
The motion is part of the Minister's wider reforms to make the asylum system faster and fairer and to restore public confidence. Protection must be there for those who genuinely need it but when someone who has had a full and fair hearing and has been refused, that decision has to mean something. The Irish people are generous and they want a system that is fair and that works. They lose faith when decisions are not enforced. Clearly no country can do this alone so the return depends on co-operation with countries of origin, with our EU partners and with the UK with whom we share the common travel area. In July, six men were returned from Dublin to Lagos through the Frontex operation from Rome. That is what working together looks like.
I ask that the Department reports annually to this House on returns to Nigeria under this agreement, including voluntary ones, and that the Minister of State continues to work with the EU and our UK partners to establish more return agreements.
We should also work closely with the Home Secretary to develop joint protocols so that people who are unsuccessful inside the common travel area can be safely returned.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-30