THE GOVERNMENT has been forced to take back 35 asylum seekers, who became marooned in Athens yesterday when the deportation flight they were travelling on developed engine trouble.
The Nigerian asylum seekers, who included several children, arrived back in Dublin last night on scheduled flights and were accommodated at the Balseskin reception centre in north Dublin.
The charter jet, which was organised by the European Union migration agency Frontex, had almost a hundred asylum seekers on board at the time. These included individuals from Britain, Austria, Hungary, Poland, France and several other EU states.
Frontex decided it would take too long to repair the plane at Athens airport and for humanitarian reasons told the EU states to take back the asylum seekers on scheduled flights.
A Government spokesman confirmed last night that the plane had developed a technical hitch.
He said the Frontex charter flight had cost €372,000, which was paid for by the EU agency.
He said it was not yet clear who would pay for the scheduled flights back to Dublin.
Refugee groups last night welcomed the return of the 35 asylum seekers, who they claim may not have had their applications for subsidiary protection properly assessed by the Irish authorities.
“Something needs to be done about the Irish system for providing protection and giving leave to remain because in 99 per cent of cases claims are rejected,” said Rosanna Flynn of Residents Against Racism, a non-governmental organisation.
“If any cases deserved it, it is two of the children on the Frontex flight, who were deported last night with their mother wearing only their pyjamas,” she said.
Subsidiary protection should be offered to individuals who do not qualify for full refugee status but where there are substantial grounds that, if returned, they would face a real risk of serious harm.
Figures released through a parliamentary question tabled by Fine Gael TD John Perry last month show just 34 per cent of the 6,356 applications for subsidiary protection made by failed asylum seekers between October 2006 and October 2010 were granted.
All 35 asylum seekers who arrived back in Ireland last night are likely to face deportation in coming weeks.
However, refugee groups said they hoped some could make further appeals to enable them to remain in Ireland.
Chris Neilson, founder of Irish Foundation for Torture Survivors, said he would personally make a legal appeal on behalf of one of the plane’s occupants, Valentine Obidegwu, a Nigerian asylum seeker who he said could suffer “persecution” back in Nigeria.
He said Mr Obidegwu, who arrived in Ireland in 2006 with his three children, had faced torture in Nigeria. His attempted deportation took place yesterday even though his three children remained in Ireland with his wife, who was granted asylum in 2005.