A Romanian couple who were imprisoned on October 29th and told they were being deported from Ireland with their two sons after living here for five years were given leave by the High Court yesterday to challenge the deportation orders.
Mrs Sylvia Costinas told Mr Justice Kelly that no deportation orders were produced by three men and a woman who came to the Costinas home at Roselawn Glade, Castleknock, Dublin on October 29th last.
It was only several hours after their imprisonment that the orders were faxed to their then solicitor. Mr Justice Kelly said he was satisfied the family had made a sufficient case for him to grant them leave to seek a judicial review quashing the purported decisions of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to deport them.
He said a press release from the Minister, stating that the deportation would be deferred, had not addressed any of the family's complaints.
In an affidavit read by Mr Conleth Bradley to the court, Mrs Costinas said immigration officers had arrived without any notice at their home on October 29th at 6.45 a.m. She said the officers said they were there to "pick up" the family and send them to Romania.
The officers were asked how they could be acting in such an unwarranted fashion when the family had still not received a reply to representations made last January to the Minister asking him to allow the family to stay in Ireland.
Mrs Costinas said she, her husband Aurel and their youngest son, Ionus (12), were taken to a police station. Their eldest boy, Marius (17), was staying with relations.
They spent four hours in a cell, she said. Ionus's requests to be brought to a toilet were ignored and he was left with no option but to urinate in a corner of the cell on a number of occasions.
An immigration officer had then told them that they were being allowed back to their home for a further seven days on condition that they left the country within seven days.
Mrs Costinas said what was most distressing was that a number of fax messages stating their appeal had been refused and purportedly dated October 20th were not in fact faxed until October 29th, after they had been imprisoned. Some orders were dated August 31st and other were unsigned and undated.
Mrs Costinas said the family had lived in Ireland for nearly five years and was totally integrated and involved in the local community. Her son Marius was due to sit his Leaving Certificate examination and both boys played Gaelic football.
For more than nine months, the Minister for Justice did not communicate his decision on their representations and, without any notification, had proceeded to deny them their liberty in an oppressive manner on foot of deportation orders which appeared to have been signed about a month before. After another 70 days, the family would be eligible to apply for Irish citizenship as they would be then five years in Ireland, she said.
Mrs Costinas referred to a press release issued by the Minister which stated that the enforcement of the deportation order would be "deferred" while a senior official investigated other facts. Mr Justice Kelly said the press release did not address any of the complaints made by the family.