“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery”.
Extract from Charles Dickens’s 1850 novel “David Copperfield”.
Government Confirms €473,000 Cost Of Recent Deportation Flight To Pakistan.
The Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, Mr Jim O’Callaghan, has confirmed that a chartered flight used to deport 24 men from Ireland to Pakistan on September 23rd last cost approximately €473,000 — almost €20,000 per person, the most expensive deportation operation to date this year.
It was the fourth chartered deportation flight in 2025, following earlier flights to Georgia and Nigeria, which together cost over €530,000. In total, 130 people have been deported via chartered flights so far this year, with a further 137 removals carried out on commercial flights by the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB).
Mr O’Callaghan said the cost of the Pakistan flight may rise as invoicing is still being finalised. He noted that deportations are “costly and complex to enforce,” adding that voluntary returns remain the preferred option.
“The returnees on this flight were accompanied by Garda personnel, medical staff, an interpreter, and a human rights observer,” he added.
The Department of Justice has issued 3,035 deportation orders so far this year, up from 2,403 in 2024.
One wonders would it have been cheaper to have allowed them to stay and found them jobs in the catering industry at the new national minimum wage of €14.15 per hour, but then I suppose what with no houses and despite global warming, tents can be still be draughty in Ireland in our winters.
Sadly, the government Learjet 45 owned by Irish taxpayer has only 7 passenger seats and the new one we the taxpayers just bought for world influencers Mr Simon Harris and Mr Micheál Martin at a cost of €53m; (due for delivery Xmas 2025, in time for Ireland’s EU Presidency in the second half of 2026), will only have 10 seats.
Could they not have used an Emirates Economy Return Flight from Dublin to Karachi which would only have costs €842.37 per person, (a saving of €19,000 per person), but then I suppose unions representing Garda personnel, medical staff, an interpreter and a human rights observer, would have objected to travelling Economy Class.
Meanwhile, we read last month that Community Foundation Ireland, ranks Ireland 16th out of 27 European Union countries when child poverty is rated.
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