EU urged to investigate Irish deportations

An anti-racism group has called on the European Commission for Human Rights to investigate how deportations of failed asylum-seekers are being conducted by the Irish State.

Residents Against Racism says refugees are being taken from the homes in the "dead of night" and put on a plane without any recourse to legal services.

At a protest outside the Dublin office of Department of Health and Children this afternoon, the group's representative, Ms Rosanna Flynn, said deportations were being conducted under a "veil of secrecy" and asked why the State was not more open about its own policy.

She said the protest was taking place outside the Department of Health and Children because the process was failing "to protect Irish children".

Ms Flynn said: "The inclusion of three Irish children in the last mass deportation is a clear violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the UN Convention on the rights of the Child, which prevent discrimination of any kind due to the parent's national, ethnic or social origin.

"These children would not have been on board that chartered flight if the Government had upheld this convention and had protected the child against discrimination due to the status of their parents."

She claimed the Garda lied about the 17-month-old child whose mother was forcibly deported without her baby. "It is completely untrue to say that the child is with its father; the immigration police do not know where the child is, the child is safe and well cared for by female friends, no thanks to the Irish authorities."

Ms Flynn added: "The distressed mother fears that her child will be put into care with strangers".

Also attending the protest was Mr Ciaran Cuffe of the Green Party, who said he was concerned with the "unfair tactics" being used against asylum-seekers.

Mr Cuffe said the policy of coming to people's homes with no notice was putting people under "unfair pressure", adding the process of deportation "needed to be handled in a more caring way".