Officials confirmed that anyone claiming asylum is legally entitled to enter the State, even without proper documentation.
Kildare North Fine Gael TD Joe Neville has clashed with senior Justice officials over people entering Ireland without passports.
The TD pressed officials repeatedly - asking whether people can still arrive at Dublin Airport after tearing up their travel documents.
Officials confirmed that anyone claiming asylum is legally entitled to enter the State, even without proper documentation.
Justice official Doncha O’Sullivan said it’s “in accordance with Irish law” - though some people have since been prosecuted for lacking valid papers.
Deputy Neville asked: "Are we still allowing people who come into Dublin Airport to arrive with torn-up passports? What happens in those situations?"
In response, Doncha O'Sullivan said: "Certainly, in the past few years the phenomenon of people arriving without documentation or with the suspicion that they had destroyed the documentation was something we were dealing with. We have taken a lot of measures at Dublin Airport to address that including, as most people have seen, thousands of doorstep operations at planes every year."
The exchange came during a wider committee hearing on immigration controls and accommodation contracts.
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