Linking gardaí to EU database will cost €4m

The Government is to spend €4m on a system that will allow gardaí link to an EU-wide database for missing persons and property — but will not give access to alerts about suspected terrorists or fake passports.

Ireland is now the only EU country has no links into the SIS II system, which was launched to much fanfare during the Irish EU presidency in 2013.

Britain joined it but, because, like Ireland, it is not one of the Schengen border-free countries in the EU, it has access only to information such as stolen or lost property such as cars and boats, and for missing people, including children.

Now, however, because of fears about radicalised Islamic State fighters returning from Syria, Britain is anxious to extend their access to the system to receive alerts about known suspects and fake or stolen passports.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said she had secured the additional capital funding of €4m to set up the computer database system in Ireland and to link it up to the central system that covers the EU member states and Switzerland.

However, installing and integrating this state-of-the-art IT system will take up to two years, and the department said it hoped they would be able to receive and send alerts into the system within six months after that.

Ms Fitzgerald said: “In light of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, I am determined to press ahead with the necessary steps to allow Ireland to participate fully in the Schengen Information System as quickly as possible.”

However, the department clarified that this would not be the case as Ireland’s access would be the same as that of the EU’s, so would not include terrorist alerts.

Sources said Britain is now anxious to convince Brussels to allow it full access, which would also mean the other 31 countries linked up to it would receive details of the estimated 65,000 people who are forcibly or voluntarily removed from the UK because of criminal behaviour or they do not qualify to remain in the EU.

Gardaí rely on receiving information on criminals and crime from Interpol, Europol and directly from other countries, but the Department of Justice acknowledged that “SIS would provide a more efficient way of sharing information”.

The first SIS system was set up 18 years ago and was designed to allow all the countries sharing in the border-free zone to exchange information about those entering the EU, about property including vehicles, identity documents, and firearms.