Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary asserted that the asylum system is “a complete scam” and that such individuals “are not refugees” because they are arriving from safe countries and then flushing their passports down the toilet

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary asserted that the asylum system was “a complete scam” and that such individuals “are not refugees” because they are arriving from safe countries and then flushing their passports down the toilet.
O’Leary made the comments during an appearance on the Newstalk radio station.

The airline boss was asked how people are able to arrive in Ireland on Ryanair flights without proper documentation or being able to prove their identities.

“Yeah because they flush them down the toilet, they arrive at Dublin airport and they flush them down the toilet,” he responded.

O’Leary said non-EU visitors to Ireland had to have their passports photographed at the border control desk so the details could be sent to the government, but that this was impossible with economic migrants.

“They show up here…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,” he complained.

“Nobody got to Ireland from Afghanistan or from Kenya or from Nigeria or from Syria on a direct flight because there aren’t any, so you’re not fleeing persecution in the UK or in Germany, O’Leary added.

“We should look after refugees, I have great sympathy for the Ukrainians, but people who are arriving here from the UK, France or other EU countries, we should be turning them back saying, here back to the EU countries where you came from.”

O’Leary said it was difficult to track what flight the migrants were on or what seat they were sitting in “because they tear up or flush their documentation down the toilets, and all of them have documentation when they board the RyanAir flight at the other side.”

Ireland has been completely subsumed by economic migrants, vast numbers of whom have set up in tent cities in major Irish cities, notably the capital Dublin.

Meanwhile, according to data released in Germany by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, 57 per cent of asylum seekers have no documentation to prove their identity, their age, or their country of origin, a figure that has risen from 48 per cent in 2023.