An activist with the Galway One World Centre staged a 24-hour fast in Galway city on Christmas Day in protest at the threatened deportation of a Polish Roma woman and her two-year-old son. Ms Frances Joyce began her fast at midnight on Christmas Eve and spent the night in a sleeping-bag in Eyre Square in bitterly cold conditions.
The deportation order was issued last month to Ms Anita Dolinska, who has been in Ireland since January 2000.