Written answers

Tuesday, 8 November 2005

Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform

Deportation Orders

8:00 pm

Photo of Aengus Ó SnodaighAengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 525: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform his views on whether decisions to deport the parents of school-age children including Irish children, thereby preventing them from beginning or remaining in school, contradicts his own assertion as to the moral force of granting residency to a family whose children had been attending school. [32823/05]

Photo of Michael McDowellMichael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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I refer the Deputy to the response made on my behalf to a motion on the Dáil Adjournment debate on this issue on 5 May 2005.

My position remains the same and is reiterated here. I ask the Deputy to consider what the consequences of a policy not to deport the parents of school-age children would be. In effect, no person in any form of State education and, by implication, none of their other family members, could be deported from the State for a considerable part of the year. Further, the logic of such a policy would be that a person at any point in the education system leading up to an exam could not be deported.

Most persons who would be subject to deportation would have arrived in the State as asylum seekers. It must be borne in mind that a substantial number of asylum seekers are of an age when they are likely to be engaged in the State education system, where examinations of one sort or another are a common feature. For example, in 2003, of the 7,900 asylum applicants almost 1,100 were accompanied minors between the ages of four and 18. Similarly, in 2004, of the 4,766 asylum applicants, more than 700 were accompanied minors between the ages of four and 18. To give a guarantee that none of those persons — and again, by implication, their siblings and parents — would be deported or even issued with deportation orders during a substantial part of the year would be gravely irresponsible. Ireland would be sending out a message to the world that it has an obligation to provide an education, including the right to sit examinations, to all those who, having been found not be in need of international protection, have otherwise no right to be in the State.

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