Ryanair CEO says ‘migrants’ are flushing papers down plane toilets
Michael O’Leary, the Irish businessman and Ryanair CEO, has claimed migrants have been destroying their travel documents and then claiming asylum in Ireland.
Speaking to Newstalk’s The Pat Kenny Show, he said that migrants were arriving into the country on flights without documents because “they flush them down the toilet.”
He went on to call it a “complete scam” and said Ryanair is working with the Department of Justice to send all non-EU passengers to get their visas checked to prevent this behaviour.
“We’re now taking photographs of their passports at the visa check desk and we want to send that information to the Department,” he said.
“So, if somebody shows up, we, as the airline, will be able to say, ‘Here’s the passport, here’s where we think they were sitting.’”
He went on to say those entering without the paperwork are from safe European countries, such as France and the UK, and should not be described as “refugees.”
“The problem is they show up here without any documentation,” he said.
“I mean, it’s a complete scam, and these are not refugees. One of the things that drives me nuts in Ireland is we treat people as refugees who are coming from the UK or from France.
“Nobody got to Ireland from Afghanistan, Kenya, Nigeria, or Syria on a direct flight because there aren’t any. So, you are not fleeing persecution in the UK or in Germany.”
‘Great sympathy for Ukraine’
He said that while Ireland should look after genuine refugees, and added that he has “great sympathy” for people from Ukraine in particular, in cases where people are coming from the UK or other EU countries, “we should be turning them back to the EU countries where they came from.”
“The challenge for border control is that they arrive here with no documentation, and it’s very difficult to track what flight they came on or what seat they were sitting in, because they tear up or flush their documentation down the toilets,” he said.
“All of them have documentation when they board their Ryanair flight at the other side.”