School deportations ‘terrorising pupils’
Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) president Austin Corcoran made his protest against the forcible deportation of school children at the opening of the union's annual congress in Galway.
His comments were made in the wake of last week's decision by Justice Minister Michael McDowell after a public outcry to allow deported Nigerian student Olunkunle Elunkanlo return to sit his Leaving Cert at Palmerstown College, Dublin.
At the weekend, it emerged that immigration officials entered a primary school and a crèche in Kerry last week looking for Nigerian boys aged three and seven. Both boys were removed from their classes to be deported.
"Our schools should be given the status of embassies. Parents should have an assurance that when their children are placed in a school, they will not be abducted from their place of learning by the State," he said.
"Our teachers have worked hard to build up our schools as centres where diversity is accepted, respected and celebrated. What message are the snatch squads sending to our young people?" the union leader asked.
He described it as an aggressive deportation policy which is wrong and is harming the world view of our country as one where human and civil rights are upheld and defended.
"Students should not have to protest to change the mind of a Minister for Justice," Mr Corcoran said.
Speaking about the case in Kerry where immigration officials took a three-year-old Nigerian boy from his playschool for deportation, the National Children's Nurseries Association (NCNA) said it would have been very disturbing for the other children as well as the child who was taken away.
"There are probably parents still trying to explain to their children where that child is gone and to reassure them that the same won't happen to them," said NCNA director of services Mary Lee Stapleton.
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