MADRID, April 30 (EUROPEAN PRESS) –

The Irish Prime Minister, Simon Harris, this Tuesday expressed his “legitimate hope” that the UK will accept the return of asylum seekers at the border, a day after the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, ruled out the possibility of an agreement on this. .

“I have a legitimate hope that the agreement between the two countries will be fulfilled”; Harris said on arrival at the Government meeting and where she returned to the commitments signed after Brexit, under which Ireland has the right to return migrants to the UK whose asylum applications are rejected.

The Irish Executive is currently debating legal reform that puts these commitments in black and white. “We will change the law to implement what Ireland and the UK have agreed to and have been in effect since 2020,” said Harris, who stressed that the sole aim was to provide “legal clarity.”

The Irish government reported an increase in arrivals of asylum seekers amid increasing political pressure in the UK, especially due to the approval of a law supporting deportations to Rwanda. These flows will increase in Northern Ireland, the only land border between the two sides.

Sunak said on Monday he was focused on carrying out these deportations and ruled out any agreement with Dublin: “We will not accept returns from the EU via Ireland when the EU does not accept returns to France, where these illegal immigrants come from. .”

However, London has not yet determined when it will start these flights, although in the last few days it has taken steps to be able to start them – according to Sunak, within a maximum of three months -. The British government was aware that some of those potentially expelled were no longer disclosing their whereabouts to the authorities; in particular, about 2,140 of the 5,700 have been identified, according to a Ministry of Home Affairs report, compiled by ‘The Guardian’.