Sir, - It is with great delight that I heard the news that the Costina family's deportation order was to be deferred and that the Department of Justice had undertaken to review their case sympathetically. However, I do not accept, as the Department would have us believe, that their treatment was an isolated incident involving a breakdown in communications between the Department, the Garda, and the solicitor representing the Costina family.
This is not the first time that the Department of Justice has acted in such a heavy-handed manner in effecting a deportation. Two months ago a Ukrainian asylum-seeker went to Ennis Garda Station in the belief that there was a query about his passport. He was immediately put in detention and deported from the country within 12 hours. He was not notified of his impending deportation as his solicitor was on holidays and his girlfriend, also an asylum-seeker, was denied access to him when she sought to give him some of his belongings before his expulsion. This outrageous treatment was bereft of any humanitarian concern. Unfortunately, in this case the asylum-seeker was already deported before the media picked up the story.
The manner in which the Costinas and the Ukrainian asylum-seeker were treated is typical of the experiences of asylum-seekers faced with deportation from this country. They are being lifted from their homes in the early hours of the morning without any warning. Many of those deported under the terms of the Dublin Convention will end up in detention centres in other EU states prior to their expulsion from Europe. It is not simply the case, as it sometimes appears, that the Irish Government is merely insisting that Dublin Convention deportees must seek asylum in the first EU country they entered. The reality is that asylum-seekers deported from Ireland are being passed from one EU country to another before ending up in the countries they fled from in the first place.
Mr John O'Donoghue and the Department of Justice have clearly signalled their intention to deport as many asylum-seekers as possible. In the past month upwards of 200 deportation orders have been issued to asylum-seekers in Ireland. Not only has our long and extensive history of economic migration been forgotten, but the Irish Government has failed to recognise the humanity of those seeking refuge in Ireland. The entire policy of the Irish Government on asylum-seekers has been shameful, mean-spirited and deeply hypocritical.
Yes, let us hope to celebrate a happy ending for the Costina family. But let us not forget the humanity of all asylum-seekers in Ireland and the inhumane and often procedurally incorrect treatment inflicted on them by a faceless bureaucracy supposedly acting on our behalf. - Yours etc., Pat Guerin,
Anti-Racism Campaign,
Upper Camden Sreet,
Dublin 2.