The demand by immigration officers that parents of Irish children, who are facing deportation, surrender their children's Irish passports, "is a huge violation of Irish citizens' constitutional rights," the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has said.
Ms Tanya Ward, senior research and policy officer with the ICCL, was responding to yesterday's report in The Irish Times that Garda National Immigration Bureau officers had told a South African national facing deportation that she must surrender her child's Irish passport before being removed from the State.
Ms Ward said the only circumstances in which the Department of Justice or the gardaí may demand a passport was if the holder had committed or was suspected of committing a serious offence.
"The only reason the passports are being demanded here is to facilitate the child's removal from the State."
She said Irish children were effectively being deported.
An estimated 20 children born in Ireland have been deported with their parents since the middle of last year.
A spokesman for the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, insisted the children's passports were not being confiscated. "Those passports are given back. The request that they be handed over is so travel documents can be processed."
He said the parents "technically" had the right to refuse to surrender their children's passports.
"Technically they have the right to leave the children here."
However, Ms Ward said the manner in which the Garda National Immigration Bureau was writing demanding surrender of children's passports, with the statement: "If you fail to comply with any provision in this notice an immigration officer or a member of the Garda Síochána may arrest and detain you without warrant," left parents with no doubt they had no option to refuse.
The Irish Refugee Council said that if the passports were being demanded to apply for entry visas for the children, there was an implicit acknowledgment that the children were not citizens of the country to which they were being deported.
"That raises questions about their entitlements to health care and education in those countries," said Mr Peter O'Mahony, chief executive of the council.
Meanwhile, the main Opposition parties have come together to oppose the forthcoming citizenship referendum.
The Campaign Against the Racist Referendum said the Government was "cynically playing the race card" in an attempt to divert the electorate's attention from its domestic failings.
Though the wording has not been published, it is thought the referendum on June 11th will propose limiting birth citizenship to children whose parents have been resident on the island of Ireland for between three and five years.
The Government has said this is necessary to stop women arriving in Ireland late in pregnancy to get citizenship for their child.
Ms Ivana Bacik of the Labour Party said there was no evidence this practice was widespread.
"If there is some abuse of our laws on citizenship that abuse might best be tackled through the passing of legislation criminalising the trafficking of pregnant women."
Ms Patricia McKenna, Green Party MEP, said the referendum was being held with "undue haste".
