EU leaders plan tougher control on our borders

New rules will make it easier to deport

- MIRROR REPORTER

TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar must have foreshadowed talks that would take place at a European Union level when the Cabinet met for its “away day” in Farmleigh last month. 

“One of the things that we’ll examine over the next couple of weeks is how we can make sure that we have more appropriate and more robust border controls to make sure that people aren’t able to enter the country illegally,” he told reporters on January 11.

“The vast majority of people who come here from overseas do so legally. That’s absolutely right. But those who don’t, obviously, we have to protect against that.”

Fast forward one month and the same conversations were taking place at a European level meeting in Brussels, this time against the backdrop of growing protests against the numbers of migrants arriving here.

Varadkar has joined Austrian, Belgian, Danish and Dutch leaders in calling for tighter border controls. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer has suggested “fences” in an echo of Donald Trump’s border wall.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has repeatedly said that EU funds will not be used to pay for fences.