The reasons the Costina family gave to be allowed to stay in Ireland were not sufficient to grant their appeal, the Minister for Justice said last night.

However, no further action would be taken until a senior Department official had investigated all aspects of the case, Mr O'Donoghue said. The Costinas, from Romania, have been living in Ireland for almost five years and were arrested and detained last week for deportation.

The Minister was speaking during an adjournment debate in which opposition deputies called on him to grant their appeal to be allowed to stay in Ireland permanently.

Mr O'Donoghue said they had arrived in Shannon from Cuba in 1994 with two other related families and sought asylum. The then Minister of State, Ms Joan Burton, rejected their appeal in 1995.

The UNHCR stated that in view of the ease with which the family obtained new passports in Cuba from the Romanian embassy, none of the issues raised by the Costinas gave rise to a claim for refugee status. An independent appeals authority in 1997 decided that the applicants had not justified a claim for refugee status.

Mr O'Donoghue said he was prepared to consider a request from the family in a signed statement that they would leave Ireland with their younger son if their older son was allowed to stay in Ireland with his uncle's family to complete his Leaving Certificate.

Fine Gael's justice spokesman, Mr Jim Higgins, said the Costina family's appeal should be granted.

Irish people liked to be viewed, particularly in the eyes of outsiders, as "models of fairness and civility". He added that "the manner in which this husband and wife and their children were arrested in a dawn swoop smacked of the type of tactics which characterised the Gestapo".

Calling for Mr O'Donoghue to suspend the deportation order for the Costina family, Ms Liz McManus (DL, Wicklow) asked him to consider alternatives which reflected the support "for this unfortunate family whose only desire is to live and work among us".