The Government's deportation of a Burundi national and her two daughters from Mayo is to be referred to the British-Irish Parliamentary Body by the Independent TD, Dr Jerry Cowley.
Ms Olivia Ndayishimiye had been resident with her two girls, aged seven and five years, at the Mayo Rape Crisis Centre in Kiltimagh since last October. Over three weeks ago, the three were taken under Garda escort to Dublin airport and flown to Heathrow early the following morning. Dr Cowley has described as "inhuman" and "savage" the manner in which the deportation was carried out.
The three were sent to Britain under the terms of the Dublin Agreement, as Ms Ndayishimiye's original application for asylum was made in Britain.
However, they have also been refused re-entry by the British authorities, and are currently staying in a refugee centre in London, pending eventual return to Burundi.
Representatives of the Kiltimagh Refugee Centre travelled to London in recent weeks to try to secure improved accommodation for them.
A petition has also been sent from the Kiltimagh community to the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, asking him to intervene on behalf of the family. A bank account has been opened and the community has offered to look after the three if they are returned to Ireland.
Dr Cowley said that the justification for the deportation of the Ndayishimiyes from Mayo was "lame", given the "truly horrific abuse" that they may have suffered in Burundi. The Mayo TD said he understood that representatives of the Garda immigration unit had arrived in Kiltimagh at 10.30 p.m. on July 7th, and had taken the three "without notice or warning" and "under cover of darkness" to Dublin airport.
"We ourselves had a difficult past, and our own emigrants found safety and succour in faraway lands," Dr Cowley said. The case raised "serious questions about the existing system" for dealing with asylum-seekers, he said, and it required review by both the British and Irish governments.
"I will be seeking that this matter be put on the agenda of the British-Irish Parliamentary Body on which I sit, and which meets in October," he said.
