Right to remain for Irish citizen children and their parents
01 November 2003
On 17 July 2003 Michael McDowell, Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, announced that a backlog of 11,000 claims for residency by non-EU parents of Irish citizen children had been nullified. He issued four hundred notices of effective deportation with only 15 working days to appeal (see Statewatch vol 13 no 5). The Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) and the Coalition Against the Deportation of Irish Children (CADIC) have launched an urgent campaign against the proposed mass deportation of Irish citizens and their parents, arguing that it would violate the European Convention of Human Rights and Ireland's constitution.
The IHRC was established in July 2001 as a result of the of 1998 Good Friday Agreement which provided for the establishment of Human Rights Commissions in the Republic and in Northern Ireland to improve the protection of human rights across Ireland as a whole. It has recommended that the Irish government and Justice department make provision for free legal assistance and advice to people faced with possible deportation. It has also called on the government to reconsider its position in relation to non-national parents of Irish citizen children who had applied as parents of Irish citizen children for permission to remain in the State.
The IHRC further points out that Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (torture, inhuman or degrading treatment) obliges the State to protect its own as well as other citizens by not sending them to countries (non-refoulement) where in this case especially harmful practices such as female genital mutilation, forced marriage or child labour prevail. Further, decisions should have regard to whether citizen children would be sent with their parents to situations of armed conflict or famine, or where their welfare or rights to education and healthcare would be in jeopardy.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, are supporting the campaign and organisations are now collecting as many signatories as possible for "a letter to be sent to the Minister calling on him to respect the rights of all Irish children equally and to put in place a fair policy".
Joanna McMinn, the director of the National Women's Council of Ireland said:
In the 1980s, Ireland abolished the term an 'ill-legitimate child'. Twenty years later, a new generation of Irish children are being treated as if they were 'ill-legitimate' citizens, again only because of the status of their parents.
The Coalition Against the Deportation of Irish Children is calling for support for the campaign. Individuals who wish to sign a petition should send their name and pledge to the letter to: cadic@ericom.net
Organisations that are signing up should inform the Irish Council for Civil Liberties: iccl@iol.ie. For updated information check http://www.iccl.ie/minorities/news.html.
The current organisations supporting the campaign include:
CADIC (Coalition Against the Deportation of Irish Children), chaired by Ronit Lentin, Department of Sociology, TCD includes Amnesty Ireland (Irish Section), Akina Dada Wa Africa, the Children's Rights Alliance, Conference of Religious Of Ireland, the Free Legal Advice Centres, the Immigrant Council of Ireland, Integrating Ireland, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, the Irish Refugee Council, the Jesuit Refugee Service, the Refugee Project of the Catholic Bishops, Refugee Information Service, Residents Against Racism, National Women's Council of Ireland and the Vincentian Refugee Centre. The Coalition has a website: http://www.integratingireland.ie/index.php?article_id=874§ion_id+0