THE GOVERNMENT’S immigration policies are forcibly separating
families of Irish children, and allow no mechanism to appeal, Auxiliary
Bishop of Dublin Raymond Field has said.
“Not only are parents
forced to live in different countries but they must choose where and
with whom their child will live,” he notes.
Writing in the Rite and
Reason column in today’s Irish Times, Bishop Field, chairman of the
Irish Bishops’ Council for Justice and Peace, says: “Ireland is the only
EU member state without primary legislation on family reunification for
immigrants.”
This is so despite the Constitution’s recognition of the inalienable and imprescriptible rights of the family, he adds.
“In
Ireland, in accord with EU law, a child is entitled to Irish
citizenship if one parent is an Irish citizen or a legally resident
immigrant,” Dr Field says.
“The other parent may be someone whose visa
is expiring or whose asylum application has failed. However, despite a
child’s rights as an Irish citizen, we are now seeing the deportation of
a parent whose immigration status is irregular.
“Not only are
parents forced to live in different countries, but they must choose
where and with whom their child will live. With no independent
immigration appeals mechanism, there is little scope to challenge any
deportation decision.
“The process of being reunited here with
family members is, in effect, an obstacle course with application
procedures and outcomes which are neither consistent nor transparent,”
he notes.
“So at some future time, shall Ireland be confronting
the issue of what was done to Irish children by the Irish government in
the first decade of this millennium?”
SIC: IT/IE