deportees told to surrender irish passports of children 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 (the irish police force) 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.”
refugee council criticises garda letters to immigrants the irish refugee council has criticised the gardaí for sending letters to the non-national parents of irish-born children ordering them to surrender their children’s passports. peter o’mahony, the council’s chief executive, said the gardaí had claimed the phrase ‘surrender the passport’ was unintended and the letters should have read ‘present the passport’. however, mr o’mahony said this attempt to play down the matter did not tally with the next paragraph in the letters, which threatened the arrest and detention of anyone who failed to comply with the order. “it’s a fairly dramatic and disturbing new development,” he said.
there is a saying in ireland “cead mile fáilte” (a hundred thousand welcomes), it seems to be being tested sorely these days.
there is a referendum being held on this subject in ireland on june 11th. its to decide whether a child born in the country automatically gets citizenship, regardless of the origin on his/hers parents. i was listening to a radio show last night when i heard a minister in the government comment that the words “rampant abuse of the system” (by foreigners wanting to stay in the country) were not inflamintory or scaremongering (the words were said by our taoiseach (prime minister) last week some time). shocking stuff. one of the main reasons the referendum got the wind behind its sails in government circles was an apparent request/appeal/query by the heads of dublins largest maternity hospitals into the fact that 60% or so of the births registered in them were due to non nationals. the government went public with this and tried to use it to justify the referendum that was needed to solve this “crisis”. except there isnt much of a crisis. the heads of the hospitals deny making any requests or being worried about the trends (which are now apparently on the downward direction). so we have a referendum for no real reason, it will be something that will only make everything ‘black and white’ when its a million shades of grey. (not having direct access to irish news probably made my little reconstruction there a little unfair to some parties).
irish history for the last two centuries has involved a large percentage of our population getting out of the country and trying to start a new life somewhere. being oppressed in america and england and further afield should have thought us what it feels like to be oppressed, but it hasnt. we donate a lot of money to african charities and there are some irish organisations that do fanastic work in very poor parts of the world. but when parts of lagos or bejing or moldova come to our shores some parts of the system arent so accommodating.
being an irish citizen living in finland, born in london to irish parents (one of them if you go back far enough would be of scottish settlers / protestant clergy ancestry) and seeing the changes in ireland over the last few years its all just a little crazy. dublin centre now seems to be 30% populated by chinese people, some speaking with a dublin accent. its a very strange thing, something i think the politicians dont seem to be willing to look at the nuances of it all. there was an article in some newspaper when i was home about some nigerian refugees living in galway in west ireland and they were learning irish, i read on a website recently about a chinese boy playing hurling (ireland national sport) in county clare. its been years since i played hurling, years since i spoke irish (even longer since i understood any). anyway. life goes on.