Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I thank Senator Tuffy for her kind words. I want to take this opportunity to inform the House that I announced at a press conference in the Department this morning that, on careful consideration, I decided to revoke the deportation order made in the case of Olukunle Elukanlo.

I respect the genuine sympathy and solidarity shown towards him by many concerned people. I have been reflecting on this overnight and, on consideration of all the circumstances of the case, I felt the deportation order could have been made in such a way as to enable him to sit his leaving certificate before leaving the country. I, therefore, decided to revoke the order I made — it must be revoked, otherwise it would be illegal for him to be in the country — and arrange for a temporary student visa for six months to be issued to him. The International Organisation for Migration, to which Ireland is affiliated and which has a local office in Nigeria, has been asked to make the necessary arrangements for him through the Irish Embassy in Abuja.

I want to express gratitude to all those who communicated with me on both sides of the issue. Strangely enough, I want this House to know that the majority of communications I received backed the stance I was taking. In case anyone believes I was overwhelmed by traffic in the other direction, that is not the case. Even now, I am receiving flak for changing my mind. I want to emphasise that it is not a question of the volume of representations on any issue, because when one makes a deportation order, it is a serious matter. One is moving someone from one country to another country, nearly always against that person's wishes. One is frequently ending a person's dream and uprooting either an individual or an entire family. With the exception of a minority of undesirable people, there is practically no deportation order which is not fraught with emotional consequences if one thinks long and hard enough about it. These are all difficult decisions. I must confess that many of them can put one into a spin as to which way one should go. However, in the end, one must make a decision. Normally speaking, having made the decision, I stand by it.

It is important to point out that, on many occasions in the past, I have deported people for whom the trauma and so on would be much greater than this young gentleman's circumstances warrant. Many of these people had no friends in the media, school or anywhere else to protest on their behalf. One must also be careful in their case. In the past, all of us have seen leaflets and very detailed campaigns where the facts have been quite different from the public's perception. However, because these people have sought refugee status in Ireland, one is not entitled to fling open the file to the public to prove the truth. The precedent is that one cannot simply disparage someone and reveal matters they told the Irish State on the assumption that they would not be thrown into the public domain in order to justify ministerial decisions. Some ministerial decisions may appear quite tough on occasions, but I ask the public to accept that they are made on the basis of careful consideration of all the issues.

In this case, I believed on reflection that what I had done was not necessary. The end result could have been achieved differently. While people will portray it as a U-turn and climbdown, in the last analysis, saving face is one thing, but looking at one's face in the mirror the next day and deciding if one made a fair decision is another. In this circumstance, on reflection, I came to the view that the decision should be changed.

I want to emphasise this aspect to the people involved. As a society, we do not put asylum seekers into detention centres or holding centres where they are cut off from the community. We invite them into our communities. Generally speaking, they are housed in hostels on streets in villages, cities and towns. We encourage them to participate in the education system. When this continues for a long time, a relationship and friendship builds up between asylum seekers and people in the community and human ties are formed. However, the fact that a person is a good student, or that he or she has athletic prowess, is a good activist in a local church or whatever or has lost one parent and does not know the whereabouts of the other, are not grounds on which I can run a proper policy. It would be utterly wrong to say that a dull student or one with learning difficulties was more suitable for deportation. It would also be wrong to say that somebody who had a disability and was not going to win any athletics prizes was suitable, or somebody who was a civilian member of a church but not interested in it.

Many of the arguments put forward with regard to asylum seekers being kept in Ireland are perfectly understandable. One can appreciate why the clergyman, teacher or local community leader will put forward arguments as to why the person should stay, praising him or her as somebody to whom they have a strong emotional commitment. However, in the last analysis, if I was to take those arguments as the criteria on which I make decisions, they would become entirely arbitrary and very unfair on people who did not measure up.

Olukunle Elukanlo will now come back to Ireland and has welcomed my decision. With regard to the students in Pobalscoil Isolde, Palmerstown, I was taken aback when I heard somebody had proposed they should receive counselling, especially coming up to their leaving certificate. If they were going to spend their Easter holidays campaigning for Olukunle to return to Ireland I wondered what effect that would have on their leaving certificate results, whatever about Olukunle's. I therefore decided the sensible counselling and help that I could give was to bring him back and to take personal responsibility for admitting that my original decision was a mistake.