Republican News · Thursday 11 April 2002

What price children's rights?

Court rules non-national parents can be deported

Last Monday, 8 April, the High Court upheld Justice Minister John O'Donoghue's decision to deport the parents of children, who, born in this state, have a constitutional entitlement to Irish citizenship. On Friday of this week, the judge will decide if he will allow an appeal on the matter to the Supreme Court.

The judgement affects many hundreds of asylum seekers who have children born in this state. The issue is whether the rights of these children, who are born here, and therefore are citizens of Ireland, extend to an entitlement to have the care, company and parentage of their parents here in Ireland.

O'Donoghue's stated position is that the best way for the rights of these children (to parentage and to remain in the family unit) to be protected is for these Irish children to go along with their parents if and when they are deported from the state.

To date, in law, the right of parents of Irish children to remain in Ireland, have rested on a case dating back to 1990, when the Supreme Court held that the Irish born children had a right to the society of their parents within the family unit. The presiding judge at the time held that the reasons for breaking up a mixed family of non-nationals and Irish citizens would have to be "predominant and overwhelming".

But in an astounding judgement upholding the minister's decision last Monday, Justice Smyth gave his opinion that the reasons for deporting the parents were grave and substantial, emanating from upholding the common good, and thus could override the rights of the child and his entitlement to be brought up by his parents.

"What is this common good that can only be preserved or upheld by breaking up a family, and denying them a right to live together?" commented Rosanna Flynn of Residents Against Racism.

Rosanna Flynn also talked about the deportations that took place the previous week of those who were on hunger strike in Dublin's Mountjoy jail. Alabi Ayinde was one of those sent back to Nigeria. Alabi has a two-year-old daughter born in Ireland, and is the father of another child due in a few months. Despite the fact that the issue of deportation of Irish-born children was before the courts this week, Ayinde was deported, according to his wife, Omo, after an assault of considerable brutality by the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB).

At the end, Ayinde was not able to make formal complaint about his treatment. His deportation, which was illegal, at least until the Supreme Court decides otherwise, prevented it. Ayinde was removed, apparently under a blanket, after 15 days on hunger strike, to Nigeria, a notoriously racist and oppressive regime, of which Ayinde is a known opponent. "It seems that the rights of children and people who are living here in Ireland, can be totally ignored by unaccountable gardaí anxious to enforce in haste, Minister O'Donoghue's determination to get asylum seekers out of this country in the name of the common good. "Whose good?" asked Rosanna Flynn.

The latest word on Ayinde is that he is detained in prison in Nigeria. Prison in Nigeria, for opponents of the regime, is a place from which you do not come out. So much for the 'common good'.