Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I take this opportunity to raise with the Minister an individual case which is highly relevant to the content of the Bill and to the circumstances which gave rise to the legislation before the House. The individual case concerns a six year old Romanian child. I raised this case in the House last Thursday by way of a written question to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. I will quote the question and the reply since both are short.

To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if a visa will be granted to a person (details supplied) on whose behalf an application has been made to be reunited with their parents and four year old twin brothers due to the fact that the parents have legal status in Ireland since 2001 [that both parents are in employment, that one of their children has a disability, that the stated reason now for the refusal is different to the initial reason and that it is inhumane to continue to refuse this application].

The reply I received — I will deal with the details in a moment — was as follows:

Parents of the person in question have permission to reside in Ireland based on their parentage of an Irish-born child. The visa application in question relates to their daughter who wishes to join them in the State. Following the decision of the Supreme Court in the cases of L & O, the separate procedure which then existed to enable persons to apply to reside in the State on the sole basis of parentage of an Irish-born child, ended on 19 February 2003. The Government also decided that the general policy of allowing such parents to be joined in the State by other family members would no longer apply. Accordingly, the immigration division of my Department does not generally approve visas in respect of such visa applications.

I do not propose to name the applicants because they wish to keep their identity confidential. I intend to explain to the Minister the circumstances of this case and I take the opportunity of this debate to do so. I appreciate that the Minister may not be familiar with each individual case which is dealt with in his Department or which may be the subject of a parliamentary question or of representations.

The parents are a Romanian couple who came here in 1998. Twin children were born to them in 2000. One of the children suffers from cerebral palsy. Based on the birth of the twins, the parents qualified for the right to remain in Ireland. Their position was regularised some time in 2001. They received their green card and they are both now working in the State. He drives a bus for Dublin Bus and she works as a sales assistant in a department store. They rent an apartment privately, which they pay for themselves. There is no question of a rent allowance. This is a couple who are working in the State, paying their taxes and not drawing benefits of any kind.

They have an older child who is now aged six. The child was four months old when the parents left Romania. When I met the parents recently, I asked them the reason they left their four month old child when they embarked on their journey. They explained to me that when they embarked on their journey to Ireland, they did not wish to expose a four month old baby to the dangers of the journey. They travelled largely overland and they considered the journey too dangerous for the child. In any event they did not expect that they would have been separated from the child for as long as six years.

Following the regularisation of their position in Ireland and the receipt of a green card, they applied through a solicitor to have the six year old rejoin them in this country. Their solicitor wrote on 10 September 2002 to the Department stating that the enclosed application was for their only other child who is resident in Romania in the care of her grandmother. They stated: "Our clients desperately seek to have their daughter ... united with them and now are applying for family reunification of their only daughter to complete their family unit."

The application for the visa was refused on 28 February 2003. The reason given for the refusal was that the solicitor had not enclosed the child's birth certificate with the application. The solicitor had apparently enclosed the passport, photographs, fee and application form but did not submit the birth certificate. The solicitor then appealed the decision to the appeals office. The appeal was submitted on 8 April and the birth certificate was enclosed with the appeal. I have a copy of the birth certificate in the file which the parents gave to me.

On 20 May 2003, the visa office of the Department refused the appeal. The solicitor then wrote for an explanation as to why the appeal was refused. The letter is dated 22 May 2003 and points out, not unreasonably I suppose, that the reason which was given initially for the refusal was that the birth certificate was not enclosed. The solicitor was now enclosing the birth certificate and asked what was causing the difficulty. Based on telephone inquiries made by the solicitor, there is a further letter dated 24 June 2003 in which the solicitor refers to what appears to be some new policy decision which had been made and under which the child was now being refused a visa.

A more substantial reply was received from the Department on 23 July 2003. I wish to put this reply on the record of the House. It is addressed to the solicitor.

I am directed by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to refer to your letters dated 24th June and 21st July 2003.

I would like to point out that the application was refused initially because there was no birth certificate enclosed with the application. This has now been rectified but the underlying issue is now the Minister's policy in relation to individuals who have been granted residency on the basis of parentage of an Irish born child. As you can appreciate since the L and O judgement case in January, we are awaiting definite guidelines from the Minister.

If the Minister grants permission to remain to this particular family on the basis of parentage of their Irish born child, I will gladly reconsider [the visa] application to join her family here.

There was a further letter on 4 September, obviously on the basis of further representations made by the solicitor. The reply states:

The visa application in question refers to a dependant of a person who has been granted permission to remain in the State based on the parentage of an Irish born child. This type of visa application is not currently being processed by this Department, pending a decision by the Minister on the general policy to be adopted with this and related Irish born child issues.

That was in September 2003. I became aware of this case in my constituency work about two weeks ago. The six year old child is still in Romania. Her two parents are here. They are working and paying tax. The six year old has two brothers living here with whom she has never had contact. The child is being cared for by her grandmother. The parents have been back to Romania to see the child on a number of occasions, most recently last summer, and they described to me in very disturbing detail the nature of that visit and the circumstances of their separation from the child. It is simply cruel to keep this child separated from her parents and brothers. It is clear from the correspondence that this problem is not an administrative one. It is a policy one for which the Minister is responsible, as is stated in the correspondence. I am aware the Bill we are addressing deals with this whole issue in general terms but I ask the Minister to go back to his Department and have this case addressed and resolved.

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