Republican News · Thursday 14 August 2003

11,000 Irish nationals to be deported - from Ireland!

Think about it. You are born in Ireland. You are an Irish national. You'd think you should have the right to stay here, and, as a child, to be with your parents. But Justice Minister McDowell has decided otherwise.

Over the past ten days, he has issued 700 deportation notices to parents of Irish-born children, and added that he will not be "blackmailed" by parents threatening to leave their children behind, but will compel the parents to take their children away with them.

According to Department figures, there are l1,000 people who originally claimed residency on grounds of being the parents of Irish nationals - children born in the state. It is estimated that there are between 6,000 and 8,000 children, all between ages of 4 months to 2 years, whose right to remain with their parents in the country of their birth is now denied.

In previous judgements, the Supreme Court had ruled that parents in this position were entitled to residency but last January the goalposts moved. The Supreme Court ruled that parents of Irish nationals would not have an automatic entitlement to residency. Some 11,000 non EU parents, who in all probability had fled their native land in fear for their lives, liberty or seeking a livelihood, all of which should be person's basic right and entitlement, are now facing deportation.

No legal aid

At first, the Minister decided that these people would not have legal aid in preparing a submission on the right to remain on humanitarian grounds. According to the Irish Times, legal advisers in Dublin are charging between €2,000 and €4,000 to assist in preparing applications for leave to stay. Furthermore, the Minister has decided that they will only have 15 working days to prepare what is likely to be a complicated submission, in what is for them often a foreign language. The parents will not have the right to contest their deportation in judicial review.

Subsequently, the Minister allowed that free legal aid services would be given, however the solicitors who deal with these cases are few and far between. With 15 days to prepare a submission, there is no chance that more than a handful of applicants can be dealt with by these solicitors.

Crisis

On Monday last week, advice centres were snowed under, phone lines queued throughout the day as people, desperate and confused, tried to find out what is happening to them and what they should do. Their internationally recognised legal right to apply for refugee status is now denied.

It is reasonable to suppose that most at least were entitled to claim refugee status on the usual grounds, namely their fear of persecution in their native country. Why else would they have taken the fearful step of leaving their home, families, relatives, and have gone to a far off land, which they knew nothing about, where they had no one to support or befriend them, and didn't even speak the language?

d many did first apply but then, on advice, dropped their application for asylum on discovery that parentage of an Irish-born child gave an automatic right to remain here. But then the Supreme Court decision altered their position, and now this entitlement, at the stroke of a judge's decision, is gone.

Minister's letter

In the minister's judgement, they are 'too late' - too late to have their human right to seek sanctuary respected. They should have applied on this basis in the first place, instead of trusting to a Supreme Court ruling.

In his letter to these people Minister McDowell has decided to deport, he makes, on most spurious grounds, the allegation that "it would be conducive to the common good, in the minister's opinion, that you be deported".

He writes: "You are a person to whom permission to remain in the State was granted for the purpose of having an asylum claim determined. You subsequently withdrew that claim and thus your entitlement to remain temporarily in the state (in accordance with the Refugee Act of 1996) ceased. You have remained in the state without the permission of the Minister."

d he goes on: "Accordingly you are a person whose deportation would, in the opinion of the Minister, be conducive to the common good."

Free State?

As Rosanna Flynn, of Residents against Racism, said this week: "What sort of a country do we live in where three judges have the power to condemn 11,000 people and their children to be deported, against all natural justice, and where one person, the Minister, has the power to decide, by edict, that these families are not entitled to legal assistance in fighting to protect their human rights and the rights of their children?"

What would it have cost the state to have allowed 11,000 parents of Irish children to stay - to have not allowed the Supreme Court decision to be retrospective? Very little, in fact probably it costs substantially more to lose these people, because these 11,000 people live here, work here, pay their taxes here, and contribute to the economy and the community. The States loses this economic contribution, as well as its status as a country respecting rights, with an open welcome to the persecuted who are forced to flee their own lands.