Last-minute legal efforts were under way last night to block the threatened deportation today of two immigrant families who recently lost a landmark Supreme Court case.
A Czech family of six and a Nigerian man are scheduled to be deported today after the failure of their claims to reside in the State as the parents and siblings of Irish citizen children.
However, a solicitor for both families last night made an emergency application to High Court Judge Mary Finlay Geoghegan for an injunction to temporarily halt the deportations.
The application, by solicitor Ms Noeline Blackwell, in the Dublin home of Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan, was scheduled to be heard at around 10 p.m. The families were seeking the injunction pending an application to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Mr David Lobe and his wife Jana from the Czech Republic and Mr Andrew Osayande from Nigeria last January lost their Supreme Court claims to stay in Ireland due to the constitutional rights of the Irish-born child in each family.
Mr Lobe, his wife and their four children, including 17-month Kevin, who is an Irish citizen, are scheduled to be deported today from Cork Airport. While Kevin, as a citizen, is not named in the deportation order, his parents have indicated they will take him with them.
Mr Osayande, who has been in custody in Cloverhill Prison in Dublin, is also due to be deported this morning from Dublin Airport. His wife and two children, including his 17-month old Irish citizen son, Osaze Joshua, have not been served with deportation orders.
The families are due to be deported to the UK instead of their respective native countries. This is because before they came to Ireland they had made unsuccessful asylum claims in the UK and the authorities there have agreed to take back them back under the Dublin Convention, a treaty between EU governments on asylum claims.
The families had appealed to the Supreme Court against their threatened deportations on grounds they were entitled to reside in the State as the parents of Irish citizen children who have constitutional rights. Rejecting their appeal last January, the court ruled that the Minister for Justice was entitled to deport both families, as non-national parents of Irish-born children do not have an automatic entitlement to reside in the State by virtue of the birth of the child alone.
The court confirmed that an immigrant family could be deported, even if this meant the effective removal of the Irish citizen child.
The Lobes received an official letter last Saturday asking them to report to their local Garda station yesterday in connection with their planned deportation. The family lives in Ballineen, some six miles from Bandon, in Co Cork.
Ms Blackwell, Mr Lobe's solicitor, made the application to the Minister for Justice last Monday. The Minister's office replied by fax yesterday that the order for the Lobes was correct and legal and would not be withdrawn.