The deportation of a Nigerian woman and four of her children has been delayed after she suffered a breakdown and was committed to psychiatric care.
Ms Elizabeth Onasanwo and her children, who have lived in Ireland for three years, were due to be deported to Nigeria this week. The State had rejected their application for asylum on appeal last November, and then refused a request for leave to stay here on humanitarian grounds.
Garda immigration officers are prevented from executing the deportation order while Ms Onasanwo is receiving medical treatment. They are also unable to deport her minor children separately from their parent.
A fifth child, Oluwasheun, who is in his twenties and living separately from the family, was detained at the weekend and is due to be deported shortly.
Ms Rosana Flynn, of the Residents against Racism group, last night appealed to the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, to allow the family stay in Ireland on compassionate grounds. She says she last saw Ms Onasanwo last week. "She was standing on the quays talking away to no-one, and laughing hysterically."
Friends brought her to her GP, who referred her to a psychiatric clinic in Clonskeagh.
Ms Flynn says Ms Onasanwo has been "destroyed mentally" by the stress involved in seeking asylum and the threat of being returned to Nigeria. "She's suicidal. She found a scissors and tried to cut her wrists. She says she wants to die."
The family came to Ireland in 1999 and were placed in Falcarragh, Co Donegal. Ms Onasanwo said she fled Nigeria because her daughters were at risk of female circumcision ordered by tribunal elders. It is unclear where her husband is, but her 18-year-old daughter Christina says the family has "lost contact" with their father.
Because of the size of the family they were transferred to hostels in Bray, Co Wicklow and then Ranelagh, Dublin. Christina, the oldest daughter, attended St Louis High School Rathmines, and is planning to study international marketing and business studies. Her male twin, Adewole, is a diagnosed schizophrenic and has been receiving medical treatment.Busola, who is 15, is doing well at the Christian Brothers school in Westland Row, according to Ms Flynn. However, he was recently injured in a football match and requires surgery urgently.
The youngest child, six-year-old Bolu, who has started national school in Ranelagh, is being minded by friends.
The pace of deportations has increased this year as the Department of Justice works its way through a backlog of asylum applications. In addition, the authorities have also begun targeting categories of people who up to now had avoided being deported. Among those deported in recent months are: the husband and son of a woman asylum-seeker; a failed asylum-seeker on hunger-strike; and a number of failed asylum-seekers with Irish-born children.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has pledged to deport bogus asylum-seekers. Last month, he estimated 80 per cent of applications were not genuine.