The Labour Party has called on a Government to review its deportation policy, which it says is "devoid of any degree of compassion or humanity".
Party leader Pat Rabbitte was speaking after the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell refused to intervene in the case of 19-year-old Olukunle Eluhanla who was sent back to Nigeria last week.
Mr Eluhanla, who was due to sit his Leaving Certificate at Palmerstown Community School in June, had been in Ireland since he was 16. Teachers have described Mr Eluhanla as a "diligent and conscientious" student.
Mr Rabbitte said in a statement the Government "now appears to be running a deportation policy for those who seek refuge in this country . . . that is devoid of any degree of compassion or humanity.
Michael McDowell
"This is the only conclusion that can be drawn from shocking events we have seen during the past week including the deportation of a Leaving Certificate student to Nigeria where he has neither family or friends; reports of terrified children going into hiding to avoid the knock on the door from the Immigration Service; a mother being so traumatised by her deportation that she had to be medically sedated.
"As a country that has exported entire generations of young people in search of a better life abroad and when our own Taoiseach was only last week seeking commitments from the Bush administration of sympathetic treatment of Irish illegals in the United States we, of all people, should treat those seeking a better life in our country with some degree of humanity," Mr Rabbitte said.
"It is time to suspend the current programme of deportation to allow a review of the entire system. Institutionalised cruelty must not be allowed to become part of public policy in this country."
Fine Gael's justice spokesman Jim O'Keeffe accused Mr McDowell of having been "less than honest" in suggesting that the final decision to deport the 19-year-old schoolboy was not his. "The impression he gives in his statements and interviews is that the independent asylum application process was the end of the matter.
"The Minister deliberately failed to even mention that the proximate reason for the deportation was his refusal of the application on humanitarian grounds for leave to remain."
"The Minister now has a case to answer on two fronts. Firstly, why he failed to mention at all the leave to remain application.
"And secondly on the substantive issue as to why he allowed the deportation to go ahead at such a pivotal time in this student's life, when he was preparing for the Leaving Cert in three months time."
Earlier, the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) as expressed its concern over the deportation. The secondary teachers' union said the manner of the deportation of Mr Eluhanla was "a further cause of concern".
"His deportation will deprive him of the opportunity to sit the Leaving Certificate and deprive him of the opportunity of securing a recognised qualification," the TUI statement said.
"We ask the relevant authorities to reconsider this case, by allowing Kunle to return to this country and resume his studies."
The TUI said that Mr Eluhanla arrived in Ireland in 2001 after witnessing the murder of his father and having been shot twice in the same incident. The union said he was deported in his school uniform.
Speaking in Kilkenny last night, Mr McDowell said the boy had access to legal aid and had his case reviewed by two independent bodies.
"Just because you're young doesn't mean you aren't deported. An Irish person going to America in similar circumstances would be back on the next plane and would never see the inside of an American school," Mr McDowell said.
"The Irish Government has a policy of giving the highest standards of protection to people who seek asylum here in Ireland. The particular facts of the case show that he was given very generous educational facilities by the Irish State and I don't want to get involved into individual cases.
"But I just want to say this, that if you have a system of law and you have a system of immigration law in a country, there are circumstances where you have to deport people at the age of 19".
Mr McDowell added that he did not believe the boy had been shot and also did not believe he had no relatives in Nigeria, had nowhere to live and had been deported in his school uniform.
Earlier, Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins said Mr McDowell should use his discretion to reverse the deportation.
A protest is to take place tomorrow at 12.30pm outside the Dáil. Students at Palmerstown Community School have undertaken a poster campaign and leaflet drop to draw attention to the situation. They have also sent money to the student to buy clothes and food.
Supporters of Mr Eluhanla are also planning to picket Fáilte Ireland offices abroad as part of a campaign to embarrass the Government into allowing the return of the student.
