A SOMALI woman who received an apology from the Minister for Justice in July because her family were needlessly left in a refugee camp for three years was arrested in Dublin last month.
Officers from the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) arrested the 30-year-old on October 24th under the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act for suspected identity fraud.
She was released without charge on the same day.
Gardaí suspect the woman's relationship to some of her family members may not be as described by her in the application for family reunion and have sent a file on the case to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
In July, counsel for Minister Dermot Ahern apologised before the High Court to the woman over "profound systems failures" which resulted in her family being left in an Ethiopian camp for three years.
The woman, who fled Somalia in 2003 and secured refugee status here in 2004, had made several unsuccessful efforts over the past three years to find out what was happening to her application for family reunification.
She said the department had failed to reply to several letters from herself and her solicitors and it was only in late 2007, when her solicitors secured her department file under the Freedom of Information Act, that she realised the visas for her husband and three children had been issued in August 2005.
Last month, Mr Ahern told the Dáil that when the decision to grant visas to the woman's immediate family members was made in 2005, "letters were prepared containing details of the decisions but, due to an unfortunate oversight, these letters were not issued, at the time, to the applicant.
"The file was inadvertently filed away and . . . did not come to notice until February 2008 when a Freedom of Information request was received," he added.
The action taken by the Somali woman against the Department of Justice was adjourned until mid-December.
Her solicitor said yesterday it would be inappropriate to comment as the matter was before the courts.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice, which granted the woman family reunification after investigating her case, said she was arrested as part of a GNIB investigation into identity fraud, but that this was an "operational matter" for the Garda.
The department did not make a request to the Garda to investigate her initial asylum claim, the spokesman said.
