REACTION:HENCHEAL IKOGHO and his wife Donna have been fighting for the right to live together in Ireland for almost two years, writes Carl O'Brien.
Yesterday morning, after a phone call came through from their solicitor about the European Court of Justice ruling, it felt like their battle was finally at an end.
"I'm totally relieved - we had been trying to put it to the back of our minds for so long," said Donna Ikogho, a Welsh national.
"Our future was totally up in the air. I couldn't help crying when I heard the news. I was crying, looking at my newborn son, who looks so much like his father. I didn't know if his father would be here for long. Now it feels like our future is much more secure," she said.
The husband and wife are among a group of four other couples who appealed a decision by the Government to refuse them residency on the basis that the husband in each case was not an EU citizen and had never lived lawfully in another EU state.
All of the four husbands issued with deportation orders were married to citizens of EU states. In each case the couples were married in the Republic and the non-EU national husbands had all unsuccessfully applied for asylum.
Mr Ikogho, an asylum seeker from Nigeria, arrived into the State in November of 2004 and met his wife-to-be a month later.
His asylum application was refused and a deportation order was made against him in September 2005. He appealed the decision and, in the meantime, married Mrs Ikogho in the summer of 2006.
Mr Ikogho's application for a residence card as the spouse of an EU citizen residing and working in Ireland was refused. The couple then decided to take proceedings against that decision.
"This ruling is magnificent," Mr Ikogho said. "I haven't been able to work at all. My hope now is to get a job, support my wife, because she's been there for me."
One of the four husbands at the centre of the case, however, has already been deported.
Henry Igboanusi (30), who married a Polish woman in Ireland, was deported to Africa last November. His solicitor, Waheed Mudah, said yesterday he was making inquiries with the Department of Justice to arrange for his client's return.