The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, insisted today the Government is not contravening European human rights laws by denying immigrant parents of Irish citizens the right to residency.
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Mr McDowell: The Government respects the court
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His comments came following the news last night that two immigrant families, due to be deported today after losing a landmark Supreme Court case, had won temporary injunctions against the deportation order. The State will ask the High Court tomorrow to discharge the injunction.
The families were seeking the injunction pending an application to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
"The European Court of Human Rights is the tribunal which is charged with upholding the obligations of member states," Mr McDowell said today."The Irish Government respects that court, but as far as I know its jurisdiction hasn't been invoked and as far as I know the Government is acting entirely in conformity with the law and it intends to do so in the future".
The Lobes, a Czech family of six, and a Nigerian man, Mr Andrew Osayande, were ordered to leave Ireland after the Supreme Court rejected their claims to reside in the State as the parents and siblings of Irish citizens.
Mr David Lobe, his wife and their four children, including 17-month-old Kevin, who is an Irish citizen, were scheduled to be deported today from Cork Airport. Although 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 held 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, have not been served with deportation orders.
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.
They 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.
As the families had initially unsuccessfully applied for asylum in theUK before coming to Ireland and the UK has agreed, under the DublinConvention, to take them back. The deportation orders as a resultinvolve the families being deported to the UK and not their nativecountries.