Family returns to appeal deportation

The Department of Justice says it will reimburse the fares of a Nigerian family who returned to Ireland at the weekend, six weeks after being deported.

The Olaniran family have been allowed to return here for a judicial review of their case.

This is the first time failed Nigerian asylum-seekers have been allowed travel back to Ireland for legal proceedings.

Up to a dozen other Nigerians who were deported on the same flight as the Olanirans are now expected to seek to return here on the basis that they, too, were illegally deported.

Since their deportation in April, Mr Felix Olaniran, his wife Olubumni and their Irish-born child, Kolade, had sheltered in a church in the Nigerian capital, Lagos, which lent them the airfares to return.

They arrived at Dublin Airport on Saturday morning. The family were among a group of 35 Nigerians deported on a charter flight to Lagos on April 6th. The couple say their child was sick at the time of the deportation.

The family, who are Christian, travelled to Ireland in April 2000 and applied for asylum. According to their lawyer, Mr Con Pendred, Mr Olaniran is from Lagos but the family had been living in Kaduna, a town in northern Nigeria which has been the scene of violent clashes between Muslims and Christians.

After their asylum application was refused, they asked the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, for leave to stay on humanitarian grounds, but were unsuccessful.

On the day of their deportation, Mr Pendred made a habeas corpus application in the High Court but this was rejected. Mr Justice Paul Gilligan then granted an injunction restraining the Minister from deporting the family, however this was not received by the immigration authorities until the following morning. By this time, the flight had left.