The Department of Injustice
The following article by Residents Against Racism member Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh appears in the current issue of Resistance Magazine.
Read more on The Department of Injustice.
Residents
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Asylum seekers at the Mosney accommodation centre in Co Meath who have been issued with transfer orders have been told they will not be forcibly removed.
Hundreds of residents staged a protest today to try to prevent the transfer of 111 residents to different hostels across the country.
The Reception and Integration Agency (RIA), an agency of the Department of Justice, issued the transfer orders last week. The first bus arrived at the former Butlins holiday camp this morning to begin taking people to new accommodation.
Buses will also depart from the centre tomorrow and Thursday.
Sue Conlan of the Irish Refugee Council informed the residents they would not be taken to new accommodation against their will following mediation talks with the RIA.
However, the agency is insisting that 111 people will still have to leave Mosney as those operating the centre are no longer in receipt of payment.
Some of the asylum seekers have been told they must move to Hatch Hall in Dublin or to other hostels around the country. At a demonstration against the transfers yesterday many of those who are due to be moved said they would refuse to go.
Between 150 and 200 people gathered at the front gates of the accommodation centre to protest. Asylum seekers were joined by representatives from the Socialist Party and a number of support agencies including the Irish Refugee Council and Residents against Racism.
"When you are here in Mosney you get a little house to yourself and you can decorate it and have a home. I'm not getting on the bus, I want to stay here," said Lucy, an asylum seeker from Ghana. "I am worried they will stop our food here and put our stuff on the street, this is what I'm worried about," she added.
Children held up banners asking for the Department of Justice to reconsider its decision to relocate asylum seekers. "We don't know what the future holds, we are in limbo," said one of the placards.
Benedict, a former resident at Mosney, said she had come to the centre today to support the protesters. "I have my papers and I'm living in Drogheda but I wanted to come here to show solidarity. They shouldn't be moved. Some people have been here for up to five years."
The Department of Justice has lowered the number of asylum seekers it plans to move from 150 to 111 since last week. But it said yesterday it would not back down and people would have to move to the hostels.
“There is severe financial pressure on the Government and the Department of Justice has a duty to act in the best interests of taxpayers,” said a spokesman for Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern.
A value-for-money audit found savings could be made by transferring some of the 800 people living at Mosney to direct provision hostels, mainly in Dublin.
The Government does not allow asylum seekers to work while waiting for their claims to be determined. Instead it accommodates people in direct provision hostels where they get a bed, meals and €19.10 a week to live on. This system costs about €90 million a year and has been targeted for cutbacks by the Government.
“It is obviously disruptive for those moving but there are no families or children involved. These are all single people affected,” said the Minister’s spokesman.
One of the biggest complaints from the 111 people who have been issued with transfer orders is the lack of consultation about their future.
“I’ve been moved from hostel to hostel ever since arriving in Ireland in 2004 and I’ve never had a choice. First I was in a Dublin hostel, then Galway, Mayo, Limerick, Athlone and finally Mosney,” said Amran Abdalla, a Somali who joined yesterday's protest.
“I’m not being moved because I have two children but the single people living here help us a lot with the children.”
Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins, who also attended yesterday's protest, appealed to Mr Ahern to stop the compulsory relocation of asylum seekers, who had built up support systems and friendships. He also called on the Government to speed up decisions in asylum cases in the interests of “humanitarian concern”. - The Irish Times - Tuesday, 6th July, 2010.
Toyosi Shittabey, a 15 year old, was stabbed to death in Dublin 15, on Friday, 2nd April 2010.
Let us all meet at Garden of remembrance, close to Rotunda -
Date: 10th April.
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Please, kindly arise and join this rally. The killing has happened before, it's happening now, it might happen again. If we do not act now before it happens again, it could be your son, daughter, sister or brother next. Please, kindly spare this day and join the rally - it's for our benefit.
One Voice, One Love and only One Life - no second chance.
Thanks you.
RAR
In the run-up to Easter, people often recall the commitment of the 1916 proclamation to “cherish all the children of the nation equally”. In 2010, the government is making a tragic mockery of this, with its determination to deprive Irish children of their parents through deportation.
In a time of severe cutbacks, the government has found thousands of euros to fill two deportation flights already this month. Both flights have included parents of Irish citizens, spouses of Irish citizens, and people who had not exhausted the legal process of appealing against deportation.
On Tuesday 30 March, parents of Irish citizen children, asylum seekers, Irish citizens whose spouses have been deported and their supporters will be marching in Dublin to protest against these denials of basic human rights. Join them to show your support for an Ireland that rejects racism and the forcible break-up of families, and instead embraces human rights and equality for all.
March for human rights
GPO, O’Connell Street, Dublin
12.30 pm Tuesday 30 March
Wife accuses Minister over deportation of husbandTHE IRISH wife of a Nigerian asylum seeker has accused Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern of “not praying to the same God” as she does following the deportation of her husband yesterday.
Gillian Olabode, who lives in Athlone, Co Westmeath, said current immigration rules were patently unfair because spouses of Irish citizens from outside the EU were being targeted for deportation, while the spouses of other EU nationals could not be deported.
Her husband, Henry Olabode, who unsuccessfully applied for asylum when he arrived in the Republic in 2007, was sent back to Nigeria on a deportation flight yesterday.
Residents Against Racism said it had received reports that two Nigerian asylum seekers with Irish children were also deported on the flight.
The Department of Justice refused to confirm the identity of anyone on the flight last night.
Ms Olabode said she was heartbroken at news that her husband had been deported and would fight to have him allowed back into the country. She said it was unfair to break up families and said her two children – who she had with previous partner – would be hurt by this experience.
“I travelled up from from Athlone to visit him in the prison where they were keeping him as usual yesterday but no one could tell me what had happened to him.
“A friend of Henry’s later told me that he had spoken to him shortly before he was taken on to the plane for deportation,” she said. “No one contacted me to tell me what was happening. I’ve been told Dermot Ahern is a religious man but he clearly doesn’t pray to the same God that I do if he can separate two people that love each other like this,” she said. Ms Olabode said she was aware the Department of Justice was conducting a campaign against so-called sham marriages, often known as marriages of convenience. But she said her marriage, which took place in May 2009, was no sham and criticised immigration officials for not even knowing that her husband was married to an Irish citizen when they came to arrest him to take him for deportation last month.
Solicitor Brian Burns, who represents Mr Olabode, said there was a difference in the rights that a European citizen living in Ireland enjoyed when compared to that of an Irish citizen.
“A European citizen has the right for their spouses to join them and reside in Ireland whereas this right for an Irish citizen is at the State’s discretion,” he said.
This anomaly in the law follows a judgment by the European Court of Justice in 2007, which barred the Government from deporting the non-EU spouses of EU citizens.
The Government has criticised this judgment and is seeking to have the EU rules on free movement amended to enable them to deport the spouses of EU citizens. But it has so far failed to persuade its EU partners to agree to change the rules.
A spokesman for the Minister said he could not comment on individual cases. “Every sovereign state has to have robust immigration laws and these laws must be constitutionally sound,” he added. - The Irish Times - Thursday, March 4, 2010.
THE DEPORTATION of a Nigerian mother and her three children – one of them who is seriously ill – has been suspended pending a review of their case.
Ayodola Adekunle (5) has been in Ireland with her mother Eniola and two siblings for two years. She was diagnosed with sickle-cell anaemia and has been receiving treatment at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital.
A Department of Justice spokeswoman confirmed yesterday the case was being reviewed “following legal intervention” by the family’s solicitor.
She stressed the review referred to this specific case only and was not an indication of a new stance by the department on asylum cases involving sickle-cell disease.
It is understood Ms Adekunle, who is currently living at the Balseskin reception centre in north Dublin, has been told to report to the city-centre offices of the Garda National Immigration Bureau as usual next Wednesday to ‘‘sign on’’.
Rosanna Flynn of the Residents Against Racism organisation said Ms Adekunle was “massively relieved, though still worried because this is not a permanent, definite reprieve”.
Dr Karina McMahon, the doctor treating Ayodola, said the child’s life would be seriously impaired if she returned to Nigeria.
“We know that in Africa, 50 per cent of children with sickle-cell anaemia do not live to see their fifth birthday. She should be here on a decent sickle-cell programme,” she said
Sufferers are at risk of a range of complications and life expectancy is impaired.
This is at 'The Crib' in front of the GPO on O'Connel Street. It is between 4.30pm and 6.00 pm on Tuesday the 22nd Dec 2009. This will also be an opportunity for RAR to cry out about the injustice happening to Irish Citizen children of immigrants.
Rosanna Flynn gave an interview on 21st Dec. 2009 at FM 104 and once again talked about the plight of this unique group of parents of Irish Citizen children being denied their natural rights of being with their kids.
"RAR QUIZ" - The regular end of year quiz took place on 27/11/09 and was fun for everyone. Prizes were won and it brought in the season's mood. There was also a Poem for RAR.
On Thursday 27th August, a group of Irish children gathered to give Minister Dermot Ahern another reminder of just how much they need their immigrant dads.
The fathers are under threat of deportation to Nigeria, despite the youngsters having status as Irish citizens and, in many cases, relying on them as primary carers.
8/7/09 - Press Release: Irish citizen children to rally at dail to keep their immigrant dads here
The Irish government is currently trying to deport women and girls who are under under threat of being maimed or killed by Female Genital Mutilation. >> More
The government's Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill 2008, if it comes into law, would make a desperately unjust system even worse. >> More
On Tuesday 30th June, Irish authorities, in league with their British counterparts, staged another mass deportation to Nigeria - the third within two months and a clear sign of the ramping up of removals by the state. A seven month pregnant woman, on crutches from a broken leg, was among the 34 asylum seekers rounded up from all over Ireland.
There was a public show of opposition to the deportation organised by Residents Against Racism. Spokesperson Rosanna Flynn said: "Every time these deportations happen it means families being torn apart. This is simply horrendous"
