Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 3 November 2004
80 Mr. Eamon Ryan asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if his Department recorded contact details for the parents of Irish children who have remained here following the deportations of their non-Irish national parents. [27282/04]
View answer124 Mr. Eamon Ryan asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if a protocol has been put in place between his Department and the Department of Health and Children to ensure that there is an effective and appropriate transfer of information. [27283/04]
View answer138 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if protocols or procedures have been put in place between his Department and the Department of Health and Children to ensure that in circumstances in which an Irish child must be taken into care under the Child Care Act 1991 due to the deportation of his or her parent or parents, the location of the child is established prior to the deportation of the child’s parent or parents. [27290/04]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 80, 124 and 138 together.
In a circumstance where a parent of an Irish-born child, who is properly subject to a deportation order, refuses to disclose the location of his or her child to the authority responsible for effecting the deportation, which is the Garda national immigration bureau, it is not possible to inform the relevant child welfare authorities of the child's whereabouts. If, after the deportation has been effected, the parent or his or her support groups or legal representatives in Ireland communicate this information to the authorities or where this information comes to light by other means, the relevant authorities will be informed immediately.
In general, it is a matter for parents of a child who is not liable to be deported to make a decision on the welfare of that child if they are deported. Ordinarily, parents have a moral and constitutional duty as well a duty as well as a right to provide properly for their children's upbringing and this duty is recognised by the Constitution. If parents acting in good faith, however, leave their children in the care and custody of another appropriate person, the State will not interfere with those arrangements as long as the decision does not amount to a failure in the duty towards their child which would justify State intervention.
How many of these cases have been reported to the Department over the past while? Section 37(1) of the Child Care Act 1991 provides that there must be reasonable access to the child by his or her parents. Is the Minister ensuring this provision should be met in these circumstances? These cases are harsh and extreme but the State has a legal duty to observe the provisions of the Child Care Act 1991. What action does the Minister intend to take?
The number of people with Irish-born children deported between February 2003 and October 2004 was 37. I am not in a position to give an accurate account of how many people have left the State and left Irish-born children behind them because they do not inform the authorities. Having regard to the total number of people with IBCs who have been deported, it can only involve a handful of cases.
A parent is entitled to leave his or her child in the custody of somebody else as long as he or she is not in breach of his or her legal duty towards his or her child. If parents choose to make that decision for their child in good faith, the State is not at liberty to interfere with the decision. However, just as in the US, parents of children who are citizens are required to leave when their status becomes illegal. If they make a choice in good faith to leave their child in the custody of a relative or friend who will look after the child, I cannot legally interfere with that arrangement. However, at the same time, I am not willing to accept a situation where people can resist deportation by saying they will consciously fail in their duty towards their child.
As long as people do not act in breach of their duty towards their children, I cannot interfere. Where gardaí become aware of a child who is at risk in these circumstances, it is their duty to notify the relevant welfare authorities so that the child's welfare can be guaranteed.
There are duties and obligations on the parents and on the State. Under that Act the State, through the Department of Health and Children, must facilitate access between the child and its parents. I am concerned that the State is not honouring that obligation.
The Deputy is obviously engaging in legal Jesuitry. He is effectively saying that the Child Care Act 1991 obliges the parents to have effective access in Ireland to their child if they leave the child in Ireland. That is not the law. The parents have a simple choice. It is a natural duty and a natural right antecedent to positive law to bring their child with them and the State facilitates them in every way possible. Where they make in good faith a decision to leave their child behind them, the State is not obliged on that account, under any Child Care Act, to readmit them to Ireland when and if they seek access to their children. Such an obligation would make a mockery of our law and no other State in the world would permit such an abuse of its child care laws to facilitate an effective trampling down of the ordinary law of deportation and residence.
I note that the Minister now confirms to the House that there have been 37 deportations of parents of Irish children. In the context of the citizenship debate in the House I ask the Minister to supply exact figures of the number of Irish children, post the Supreme Court case and the L & O case, who are under threat of deportation. As the Minister will be aware, I have suggested that since this is a finite number, if possible there should be an amnesty for the parents of those children at this stage. The Minister did not have an opportunity to reply to that Bill so he might reply to the point which is very serious. I do not believe we should deport or cause the deportation of Irish children or the parents of Irish children at this stage.
I am not in a position to say what age the children were in these 37 cases. The Deputy will appreciate that it cannot be the case that a person comes to Ireland and has a child here and on that account alone — the Supreme Court has so held — are absolutely guaranteed the right to remain in Ireland. The Deputy will also be aware that it has been reported that there are 11,000 people who parented a child in Ireland in these circumstances prior to the Supreme Court decision. I am not in a position to tell the House what proportion of those people are in Ireland today. There is no way I can tell the House because a very significant number, which I cannot quantify, simply had the child here and went home with the Irish passport without informing the Irish authorities one way or the other as to whether they intended to remain here or return home. I cannot make a quantification.
I say to the people who make the claim in regard to the 11,000 figure prior to the Supreme Court decision and maybe 4,000 or 5,000 post the Supreme Court decision, putting those two figures together, the number of occasions on which I have ordered the deportation of a parent with an Irish child is infinitesimal and gives the lie to the suggestion that I am busily deporting these people on a wholesale basis. The number of occasions where I have directed a parent to bring his or her child out of Ireland is infinitesimal as a percentage of those figures.
The Minister has chartered aircraft.
Yes. I remind the Deputy that not everybody on the chartered aircraft is the parent of an Irish-born child. I have given figures to the House recently on the level of deportations. Some 37 cases were instances where the deportees had an Irish child. That is an infinitesimal percentage of the number of people who have claimed to remain in the State by virtue of having a child born in Ireland.
Will the Minister give some indication of the factor which would cause him to proceed with a deportation of the parents of an Irish child, in particular, people who have been in the State for a long time and who have children born before the Supreme Court decision in early 2003? What factors would cause the Minister to come to the view that they should be deported?
I do not have some rule of thumb. Every case is examined individually. Deportation is only done when it is necessary in the view of the Minister, on advice received, to maintain the integrity of our immigration law and the State's capacity to regulate transit in and out of the State and to prevent the law from being completely usurped or undermined. The number of circumstances that would cause one to stay one's hand in respect of any child and its parents being deported is almost infinite. I do not discuss individual cases in the House and I will not go down that road. I assure the House that very strong reasons can be found that people who would otherwise be strictly liable for deportation should not be deported on a moral values basis. I assure the House that the 37 cases since February 2003 show that I am not engaging in wholesale deportations of this kind.
What is the Minister's common denominator?
It is based on humanitarian concerns, including, for instance, the length of stay in Ireland. If children have been here for a long time or if there are a number of children in the family and they are no longer toddlers in arms but have effectively only an Irish culture, in those circumstances I would hesitate significantly before deciding there was something special about the case that required the parents to be deported and to take their child with them.
What is the common denominator for the 37 cases?
I cannot give a common denominator for the 37 cases because these cases are dealt with on a case by case basis.
