There has been a threefold increase in deportation orders issued so far this year compared with the same period last year as part of a deliberate hardening of policy towards immigration by the Government.

It comes amid a dramatic decline in the number of people seeking asylum in the State in the first three months of the year.

A total of 1,008 deportation orders were issued in the first three months of the year compared with 305 in the same period in 2024. Until the end of March, 446 people departed the State, 59 of whom were enforced deportations.

A charter flight in February deported 32 Georgian nationals from Dublin to Tbilisi at a cost of more than €100,000, the first of a number of such flights expected to be used this year for “in extremis” cases.

The number of people seeking international protection in the State has also fallen 40 per cent in the first three months of the year. Total applications until the end of March were 3,021 compared with 5,151 for the first three months of 2024.

The figure for March, 837, was less than half the 1,821 in March last year. It also represented the lowest monthly number of applications since April 2023.

As part of what the Government describes as a tightening of asylum policy, Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan told The Irish Times he wants immigration laws that are “robust, fair, efficient and enforced”.