It was around 5 a.m. yesterday when Antoine heard gardaí enter his house in Rialto, south Dublin city, which is divided into five flats all occupied by non-nationals. The Congolese asylum-seeker watched bleary-eyed as gardaí led away a fellow national in handcuffs from a flat upstairs.
"I was sleeping in my bedsit and I heard a noise outside," he said. "I opened the door, and gardaí were coming in, 10 or more. I told them that nobody lived in the flat opposite and then they came into my bedsit and asked for ID and asked my wife also, and when they finished two more gardaí with gloves said they wanted to check the flat for drugs," he said.
Antoine's papers were in order, but the man who was led away might be deported. He appeared in Kilmainham District Court yesterday, was sent to Cloverhill Prison in Dublin and will be before the court again next Friday.
The detained man had been in Ireland for four years and had worked illegally in a launderette, according to a friend.
"He could be deported, and if he is he will be killed because at the moment in our country everyone who comes from a region in the south of the country is being killed," said the friend.
Father Michael Begley from a Spiritan asylum services initiative, SPIRASI, said he had heard of a case where gardaí called to a house in search of a particular person but ended up arresting another man. This man, a Georgian, had been sent to Donegal after he lodged his asylum claim, but had returned to Dublin. He was detained yesterday in Cloverhill. Father Begley said he understood the man had not yet been interviewed on his claim to remain in Ireland as a refugee.
He said the high-profile manner of the operation had "generated an ethos of fear among asylum-seekers. Surely a better way is to follow up cases in an ongoing way rather than generating fear in the community."
Ms Rosanna Flynn from Residents Against Racism, which has opposed deportations of failed asylum-seekers, said such people were being detected more frequently after they notified the authorities of their intention to marry Irish nationals.