A classmate of deported Nigerian student Olukunle Elukanlo faces a meeting with the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) and the prospect of deportation just one day before he is due to sit his Leaving Certificate exams next week.
Tunde Omoniyi (20), who is also from Nigeria, received a letter from the GNIB seeking a meeting with him on Tuesday, June 7th, to arrange for his deportation. This followed the issuing of an earlier order against him by the Department of Justice.
The timing of the meeting, the day before the Leaving Certificate examinations begin on June 8th, has been described as "completely unfeeling" and "needlessly insensitive" by the two main second level teaching unions, the Asti and the TUI.
Pádraic Gallagher, principal of Palmerstown Community School/Pobalscoil Iosolde, which Mr Omoniyi attends, said the school had contacted the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell's office early last week to request a meeting with him.
"We are still waiting for that meeting," he said. "The Minister's office gave us assurances that he would not be deported during the examination period, up until June 24th."
Mr Gallagher said the school had also been assured that the date when Mr Omoniyi was expected to report to the GNIB would be brought forward to this week.
However, Mr Omoniyi, who has been a student at the school for two-and-a-half years, had received no formal notification of a new date for such a meeting by yesterday.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice said it could not comment on individual cases. But it is understood that it expected Mr Omoniyi or a representative to contact it to rearrange the date of the meeting, and had agreed not to deport him before the end of the Leaving Certificate exams.
Last April, Mr Omoniyi's classmate, Mr Elukanlo, returned to Ireland after Mr McDowell was forced to reverse a deportation order against him. This followed a public outcry after his classmates launched a high-profile media campaign protesting against his deportation some two weeks earlier.
It was unclear last night whether Mr Omoniyi would be allowed to remain in the country after the Leaving Certificate exams, or whether the deportation order against him would be fully enforced. A spokesman for the Garda press office said it could not comment on individual cases.
But John White, general secretary of the Asti teaching union, called on the Department of Justice to "make arrangements which temper justice with mercy".