Gardaí Numbering 119, Required To Escort 52 Deportees On €187,625 Charter Flight To Georgia.
Gardaí, numbering 119, travelled on a charter flight to Georgia, latter a country in the Caucasus region between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, bordered by the Black Sea, Russia, Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Their task to remove just 52 people, including 7 children, from the Irish State, at a cost of €187,625 for just the aircraft, according to government briefing documents.
The operation, carried out by the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB), saw 35 men, 10 women and seven (7) children taken on a flight that departed from Dublin Airport on Monday, November 3rd 2025. Garda statements confirm that the children were all part of family groups.
The 119 members of An Garda Síochána were on board alongside a translator, an independent human rights monitor, a doctor and a paramedic.
Officials stated that four family groups were removed, including three mothers travelling alone, two with two children and one with three children. The briefing notes stated that the 52 people had spent an average of two years and eight months within the Irish State.
A Q&A sheet prepared said 41 of the 52 were held in custody prior to departure. It said individuals can be detained for up to eight weeks (56 days) to ensure deportations can be carried out successfully, with detention sometimes required because otherwise “people may abscond”.
Note, the children removed were not detained and were travelling with a parent.
The briefing also recorded that some people on the flight had open applications seeking revocation of their removal order, but the minister was advised that such applications do not suspend deportation.
On criminality, the documents indicated that most of those removed had no serious convictions, with one person recorded as having a long history of criminality and a small number linked to minor offences.
While charter removals were generally comparable in cost to operations on commercial flights, it said there had never been a specific cost–benefit analysis of charter flights, and the authorities could not yet provide overall cost details beyond the aircraft cost.
In a statement issued at the time of the November operation, the Department of Justice said deportations and removals were necessary to maintain public confidence in our immigration laws.
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