Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to ensure that no asylum seeker who is sitting an Irish State examination this summer will be issued with a deportation order or deported during the examination period.

The Minister should ensure that no unaccompanied minor or asylum seeker who is due to sit State examinations here should be issued with a deportation order or actually deported. I also want the Minister to state that such students should not have to sign on at the Garda national immigration bureau in Burgh Quay until their examinations are over. Otherwise, anybody who is being threatened with deportation or the likelihood of deportation would have to sign on at the bureau now and in June.

State examinations are stressful enough at the best of times but the threat of arrest and deportation while young people are studying for or sitting examinations is absolutely intolerable.

Recently, the Minister allowed a young man, Olunkunle Eluhanla, to return from Nigeria to complete his leaving certificate examinations. The Minister admitted making a mistake and said that Mr. Eluhanla should not have been deported in the circumstances. The Minister should now follow this action with its logical counterpart, namely that anybody planning to sit examinations shortly should be free to study and sit those examinations without fear of gardaí knocking on their doors at home or in the classroom, or being arrested and detained when they report to the Garda national immigration bureau.

In Mr. Eluhanla's case, the Minister said the immigration bureau had noted on the deportation document that the fact the student was going to sit an examination should be taken into consideration. That note was left unheeded, however. A publicly declared policy statement is now required from the Minister so there is no danger of it being misinterpreted or going unheeded and another such mistake being made. That is a logical deduction given what the Minister has already declared about the case of the young Nigerian whom he allowed to return in order to sit the leaving certificate examination. It should be made clear that no one currently studying for the junior or leaving certificate examinations in June will be deported between now and the start of the examinations, or during the examinations.

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