Parents of Irish-born children, who are facing deportation, are being told to surrender their children's Irish passports before being removed from the State.
In one such case, a South African woman living in Cork since 2002 was served on March 28th with notice to present herself to gardaí in Dublin on April 13th. The letter, which has been seen by The Irish Times, states: "I also require you to surrender your child's Irish passport."
It goes on: "If you fail to comply with any provision of the deportation order or with any requirement in this notice, an immigration officer or a member of the Garda Sfochana (sic) may arrest and detain you without warrant."
Mr Peter O'Mahony, chief executive of the Irish Refugee Council, said his office had sought clarification about the apparently new practice.
Asked if the parents would get the passports back, he said: "The bottom line is we don't know".
Mr Sean Mulvihill, Cork-based solicitor for the South African woman who received one of the letters, said the demand that she surrender her child's passport was "worrying" and that unless she was given leave to appeal her deportation he would be seeking a judicial review of her case.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said there was no question of an Irish citizen's passport being confiscated, but added: "The mechanics of deportation policy are a matter for the Department of Justice."
Neither the Garda Síochana nor the Department of Justice was able to comment yesterday evening.
Meanwhile, the largest single deportation of failed Nigerian asylum-seekers was due to be carried out overnight, as between 40 and 50 Nigerians were scheduled to be flown to Lagos on a specially chartered aircraft.
The group included men, women and four children - including two babies - on a flight due to leave Dublin airport at midnight. One of the children was born in Britain.
Chief Supt Martin Donnellan, of the Garda National Immigration Bureau, said some of the deportees were arrested in the past week and detained at Mountjoy, and about 20 were arrested in raids on homes throughout the State yesterday.
It follows the deportation of 70 Moldovans and Romanians on a specially chartered plane last week and 65 to those countries in February.
Such deportations, on specially chartered flights, have been criticised in the past by refugee support groups concerned that the deportations were happening in the middle of the night and were increasingly happening "out of public view".
