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The wretched Green Mamba strikes again.

South Africans travelling to Ireland have never needed a visa to enter the country, and up until now, SA has always been designated as a ‘safe country of origin’.

From next week under arrangements announced by Minister for Justice Helen McEntee, citizens of Botswana and South Africa will be required to obtain a visa to travel to Ireland.

Woe is us.

The move is being taken in light of what the Department of Justice has described as “a significant number of international protection applications” being received from nationals of Botswana and South Africa, per The Irish Times.

However, neither country featured in the top five nationalities of the more than 9,000 people who applied for international protection in the five months to the end of May.

Nearly one in three (2,843) applications were made by citizens of Nigeria, followed by Jordan (718), Pakistan (677), Bangladesh (600) and Somalia (586). Less than 500 applications combined were made by people from South Africa and Botswana.

McEntee noted that South Africa and Botswana were the only countries on the safe list that did not require their citizens to obtain visas before travelling to Ireland.

“This is a carefully considered decision which will bring Ireland into closer alignment with the Schengen Area in respect of both of these countries, and into line with the UK in respect of South Africa,” she said.

“Irish visa requirements are kept under ongoing review, having regard to the need to ensure that effective immigration controls are in place whilst also facilitating those who wish to travel to Ireland for the purposes of a visit, to work, to study, or to join family members.”

The Minister said the Dublin visa office would now establish a dedicated “South Africa desk” to process applications from Saffas.

The Department of Foreign Affairs would also establish three visa application centres, located throughout South Africa, with visa service provider Global VFS, she said.

The government has rolled out a bunch of new measures and restrictions because there’s been a big spike in the number of people seeking asylum when they arrive. By the end of May, the number of asylum applications had more than doubled compared to the same time frame last year.

One of the new measures is speeding up the processing time for people from the country with the most asylum applications, even if it’s not considered a safe country of origin. Right now, that means Nigerian nationals.

Around 115 people were arrested in the first half of this year for arriving without proper documentation, and many have been convicted. Border checks for people coming from Northern Ireland have also been increased due to more people using the land and sea route from Britain via Northern Ireland to enter the State.

[source:irishtimes]