The Department of Justice spent more than €1.8 million on deportation flights over a four-year period including at least €422,000 on business class flights for escort officers returning from operations.
The department said expenditure was sometimes necessary for executive seats when a deportation officer was immediately returning to Ireland from a long-haul flight without staying at the destination.
Records show that spending on deportation flights last year amounted to €1.09 million, of which around €262,000 covered business class travel.
For 2023, total expenditure on removal operations was roughly €463,000 with around a third of the total – or €161,000 – paid for business seats.
The rate of expenditure has been increasing as only €219,000 was spent in 2022 and €37,000 was paid for flights during 2021.
Deportation operations were heavily curtailed during the COVID-19 pandemic with only a small number of removals, usually where serious criminality was involved.
Figures provided under FOI show that there were a total of 156 deportation orders carried out by air last year.
This included 66 people from Georgia, 19 from South Africa, 15 from Albania, 14 from Brazil, 7 from Algeria and 7 from Nigeria.