Palestinian students and visas: Time for Taoiseach or Tánaiste to step in

Sir, – The reasons cited for the refusal of visas to the Palestinian students by the Department of Justice cannot be taken seriously. The Kafkaesque decision is small-minded and, one suspects, largely performative. It embarrasses and humiliates most Irish people.

While the provision of neatly completed, stamped academic and bank records in normal circumstances are reasonable requirements for such visas, someone in Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan’s department must surely have noticed that to find even a remnant of one’s apartment, bank or university in Gaza would require such technological devices as are at present available only to the perpetrators of the disaster that they have inflicted on Gaza.

Whatever the true reason for his department’s ruling, it is beyond time for the Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris to have a quiet word, if the Minister does not change his stance. – Yours, etc,

PADDY McGOVERN,