Sea border between Ireland and Britain forms part of Aontú's election manifesto

Party leader Peadar Tóibín said he opposes the EU Asylum and Migration Pact, despite believing that some elements of the plan are beneficial.

A sea border between Ireland and Britain and a new single agency to deal with migration have been proposed by Aontú as it launched its European and local election manifesto.

Party leader Peadar Tóibín said he opposes the EU Asylum and Migration Pact, despite believing that some elements of the plan are beneficial.

Mr Tóibín, who is running in the Midlands North West constituency, said expansion of the Eurodac database — which records fingerprints of asylum seekers and people who cross borders illegally – is “logical”.

However, he said there is a “danger” that a Government would not be able to then opt-out of the pact in future if something changes.

The pact itself, which was approved by Government last month, aims to deliver a more common system of migration across all 27 EU member states, with proposals to increase burden-sharing, further fingerprinting and a new so-called ‘border procedure’.

Mr Tóibín said the Government is currently able to undertake some parts of the pact, without opting in, such as accelerated processing times for asylum seekers.

“Other elements of the EU migration pact talk about, for example, the speeding up of the processing of individuals, but that can be done here. It’s not dependent on the Irish Government being a part of that process.

“In actual fact, unless the Government actually get it together in terms of resources, they’re simply not going to live up to those objectives.”

He added it is important to remember that asylum seekers are “individual human beings” and that there needs to be co-operation with neighbouring countries, like Britain and France.

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The Aontú leader also said Ireland should consider using “safe third countries” to process asylum seekers, but this does not mean going down the same path as the UK with its Rwanda policy.

“I do believe we do need a system whereby people who have broken the rules could look for pre-clearance in terms of coming to the country to have their application processed.”

He suggested this could see people returned to an EU country where they first arrived, with pre-clearance then taking place at the local Irish embassy.

Mr Tóibín said an Irish Sea border is a “good” idea, but believes that neither the Tories or the DUP would jump at it currently, when asked if a possible Labour government would make it easier to deal with the British government.

“Remember, an Irish sea border in the long-term would be more in Britain’s benefit, because historically more people have moved from the south of Ireland north and into Britain in terms of migration patterns.

“Any government of Britain with a long-term view should actually sign up to such a project.”