The Government has spent €1.3 million on chartering planes to deport 341 people from this country since 2002, the Dáil was told today.
The figures were given by Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, who said the figure included 20 children.
He said that a handful of these cases were Irish citizens who had been taken out of the country by their parents, who were being deported.
To heckling from opposition deputies, Mr McDowell said that if this situation was a disgrace, it was a disgrace that was common to all States in Europe, and that if nobody was deported, it would encourage people to come here and try to stay illegally.
Earlier, Minister McDowell told Ciaran Cuffe of the Green Party that up to last Friday, 5,843 parents of Irish born children had applied to remain here with them, and that 1,110 of these applications had been accepted so far.
