I take it, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, that the Minister of State, Deputy Tom Kitt, is responding to the debate.
Adjournment Debate. - Deportation of Irish Citizens.
I am.
This matter relates to what must be one of the most bizarre and unacceptable cases of ill-treatment of a group of Irish citizens abroad by the forces of a friendly Government that has been brought to our attention. This incident merits the delivery of the strongest possible protests by the Irish Government to the Israeli authorities.
The Pilgrim House Community has been operating for a number of years from Inch, near Gorey, in my home county of Wexford. The community has been active on what would be described as a broad humanitarian agenda, campaigning for more humane treatment for asylum seekers and working with those with a mental handicap and children with HIV. The community has been in touch with me on a number of occasions over the years in my capacity as a Deputy for the constituency of Wexford. I know little of their religious beliefs, but I note that the local parish priest in Castletown said of them in today's edition of The Irish Times that “they are a very committed group of people, looking after handicapped children and handicapped adults in a very dedicated way”. He stated:
They are not an extreme Christian cult. That description is way over the top.
Apparently, the community decided to make a pilgrimage to Israel to visit the holy sites and mark the millennium. Accommodation had been arranged and financial arrangements were in place to support the group during its stay in Israel. There is confusion about how long they intended to stay. Some reports suggest that they intended to stay for three months, others suggest that it was eight to nine months. In any event, if the visit was to be for longer than 90 days, a visa would have been required from the Israeli authorities. The group, apparently, had no visa, so it may have been guilty of a technical breach of the immigration regulations in Israel. However, that technical breach can in no way justify what I have to describe as the appalling treatment it received at the hands of the Israeli authorities when it attempted to land at the port of Haifa.
Having been held initially for a number of hours, members of the community were then forcibly put back on the boat on which they had arrived from Greece. They say they were punched and kicked by Israeli police and pulled along the ground by the hair. Parents were hit with batons and punched and kicked in the ribs in front of their children, it is alleged. The door of the bus is reported to have been broken in the struggle. Two members of the group were allowed to go to the local police station to telephone the Irish ambassador to Israel, Mr. Brendan Scannell. According to their version of events, they were told to get off the telephone as there was no time. They say, "When we objected they rushed at us, some of them had batons drawn".
I accept the Israeli Government needs to take precautions against the activities of extreme religious cults which may use the millennium to provoke violent incidents. However, I do not accept that there were any grounds for the Israeli authorities to believe that the Pilgrim House group fell into this category, particularly given that the Irish ambassador, Mr. Scannell, devoted considerable time and energy to explaining to the Israeli authorities that they were a bona fide group and posed no threat to anybody's security. Ambassador Scannell is entitled to full credit for the actions he took to try to assist the group. However, it is deplorable that the Israeli authorities should have dismissed the ambassador's views and spurned efforts to have these Irish citizens treated in an acceptable manner.
I am aware the Minister for Foreign Affairs has already raised the matter with his Israeli counterpart, David Levy, at a meeting in Luxembourg yesterday. However, the matter cannot be allowed to rest there and a formal protest must be made to the Israeli Government.
I was one of those who, for many years, advocated the establishment of diplomatic relations on a residential basis between Ireland and Israel. The establishment of such relations poses an obligation on each country to treat each other's citizens with civility and courtesy. In this treatment of Irish citizens and the Irish ambassador, Israel has fallen short of what we would expect of a friendly, democratic Government.
I thank Deputy Howlin for raising this important matter on the Adjournment. The Government learned yesterday morning from the Irish ambassador in Israel, Mr. Brendan Scannell, that a group of 25 people from the Pilgrim House Community in Inch, Gorey, County Wexford, including seven adults and seven children with disabilities, had arrived on a ship in Haifa the previous day. The group comprised 18 Irish citizens and seven foreign nationals. They had telephoned the ambassador to complain that some of them had been beaten, abused and traumatised. The ambassador travelled to Haifa to investigate the matter and was given further details of rough treatment meted out to members of the group by Israeli officials which resulted in two members of the group being taken to hospital. The ambassador immediately contacted the Israeli Foreign Ministry and emphasised strongly that the manner in which members of the group were mistreated and mishandled was unacceptable.
My colleague, the Minister, Deputy Andrews, availed of the opportunity presented by the presence of his Israeli counterpart, Mr. David Levy, at a meeting of the EU General Affairs Council in Luxembourg yesterday – the latter part of which I attended – to have a special meeting with him to convey the Government's concerns that the dispute could damage relations between our two countries and to ask for an urgent review of the decision of the Israeli authorities not to allow the group to enter the country, so that the situation would be defused. The Israeli Foreign Minister undertook to do everything he could to resolve the issue.
The Pilgrim House Community is an independent Catholic group which wanted to bring its mentally handicapped members to the Holy Land for the jubilee year. As that would involve a stay of more than three months, it applied for visas to the Israeli Embassy in Dublin in July. In mid-September it was informed by the embassy that its applications were refused. The community then contacted the Irish ambassador in Tel Aviv, who wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 15 September asking that the refusal decision be reconsidered. When it contacted the ambassador again on 29 September, he told it the Israeli authorities were still reviewing the matter, that it would be some further time before there was a final decision and that the Israeli authorities had advised that members of the community should not arrive in the country by air on 30 September as they had planned. The community agreed to that but said that, as it had already made commitments, the group was setting out by road instead, that it would reach Haifa by 12 October and would keep in contact with the Israeli Embassy in Dublin in the meantime, and that it hoped that the visa issue would be resolved by then. The ambassador advised them not to travel and I understand that they were also strongly advised by the Israeli Embassy not to do so. The Israeli authorities view the arrival of the community in Haifa without visas as a provocative step.
The ship on which they arrived in Haifa left yesterday at 7 p.m. Irish time with the group still on board and it will arrive in Greece on 14 October. In the meantime, the Irish ambassador is continuing his efforts to persuade the Israeli authorities to allow them to visit the country, even for a period shorter than the eight months they had planned.
I wish, in addition, to pay tribute to Ambassador Scannell. He upholds the very highest traditions of our foreign service and his efforts on behalf of the pilgrims are much appreciated. Deputy Howlin has rightly acknowledged this fact.
I am aware of media reports just to hand that the group may have experienced difficulty in gaining access to Cyprus on its way to Greece. The ambassador in Athens has been asked to establish contact with the Greek immigration authorities, with a view to helping the group before its arrival there on Thursday.