Active investigations are ongoing into immigration crime in relation to the border on the island of Ireland, according to the Garda Commissioner.
Drew Harris said gardaí are in close contact with their colleagues in the UK around the area of immigration and immigration crime in particular.
Speaking in An Spidéal, Co Galway, Mr Harris said: "If we look across Europe we see that there's a huge extent of immigration crime, a lot of it being directed from outside Europe, but last year was one of the biggest movements of people into Europe that we've seen, equal to 2016."
He said a lot of the movement is being facilitated by criminal gangs, for what he called "excessive amounts of money".
"We're seeing an out-turn of that in terms of people arriving in Ireland and so our first responsibility is to investigate immigration crime and then human trafficking as well," he added.
Mr Harris said the investigations involved working with international partner law enforcement agencies.
He said part of the work is identifying who is moving illegally into the State, "but also to identify... those who are directing [it] and doing so for criminal purposes".
Asked if there are taxi companies bringing people from ports in Larne and Belfast to Dublin, he said: "We're very aware of that. We have to work closely with the authorities in Northern Ireland, particularly at the points of egress, be it ports or airports in terms of the identification of those movements."
He said a lot of information is being shared over who gardaí suspect is engaged in this.
"A lot of it is being directed for money and criminal profit," he said.
He said routine checks are also being carried out on public transport and around the suspicious movement of vehicles.
Gardaí investigating cross-border immigration crime
Close to 700 deportation orders have been signed for this year, according to the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee, who said this was significantly higher than the figure for this time last year.
