Poland accounts for majority of Ireland’s EU ‘surrender orders’

Ireland executed more surrender orders on foot of European Arrest Warrants from Poland than from every other EU member state combined last year, new figures show.

Surrender orders are made by the High Court in cases where gardaí arrest an individual accused of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, and pave the way for extradition back to the country where the original offence occurred.

Data released by the Department of Justice, which is responsible for the oversight of the European Arrest Warrant system in Ireland, shows that out of 91 surrender orders made by the courts here in 2015, 47 were for warrants which originated in Poland.

This has been a consistent theme since that country’s accession to the EU in 2004, with by far the most surrender orders executed by Ireland for every year since 2010 relating to crimes committed in Poland.

Multiple surrender orders can be issued in relation to one person who may have committed multiple offences in another jurisdiction.

The data from the Department of Justice is not presented in a way that interprets the exact amount of people extradited to each EU member state, but reasonably indicates how many absconders are fleeing to Ireland from each jurisdiction.

Last year, 25 surrender orders originating in the UK were executed by Ireland, along with 10 from Lithuania and 5 from Latvia.

Ireland received 176 European Arrest Warrants in 2015, 146 of which were endorsed by the High Court, leading to 77 arrests under domestic legislation and 36 successful completions of European Arrest Warrants.

Those detected in Ireland under the warrant system in 2015 were suspected of a range of offences including murder, rape, child abuse and human trafficking.

By the end of last year the State was still pursuing 262 European warrants issued from 2004-2014.

The UK surrendered by far the most people to Ireland on foot of European warrants last year for crimes committed in the State.

Of 47 individuals surrendered to Ireland from other EU states, 37 fled to or were living in the UK with extraditions also coming from Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Latvia, Hungary and Romania.

Nearly 380 people have been extradited to Ireland as part of the system since 2004.

Over 75 warrants disseminated by the Department of Justice to other EU states between 2004 and 2014 remained uncompleted as at 31st December 2015.