Crackdown 'a cynical bid to swing votes'
And the mass morning swoops have seriously damaged the good relationship built up by the gardaí with the immigrant community, the critics said.
The comments followed the second installment of Operation Hyphen, which yesterday spread to the rest of the country after last week’s focus on Dublin. Some 101 people were arrested on suspicion of being illegal immigrants or undocumented asylum seekers, while nine were detained for flouting deportation orders.
“It’s not coincidental that this seems to be happening as the Government steps up its campaign for the Nice Referendum,” said Peter O’Mahony, director of the Irish Refugee Council.
“The Government feels that one of the weak points in relation to the Nice Referendum is the public’s view on immigration.
“Therefore, by being harder on immigration, in the full glare of publicity, they are reducing that risk,” he said.
Rev John Rochford of the South East Refugee Advice Centre agreed.
“The whole thing is a political effort to bolster the Nice Referendum, to show people the Government is hard on immigration.”
Every county outside Dublin was targeted in the operation, led by the Garda National Immigration Bureau and Assistant Commissioner Joe Egan. It follows a Government decision to deal with over 2,600 outstanding deportation orders.
“The whole operation has caused a lot of fear and stress among asylum seekers and refugees who are here legally,” said Rev Rochford.
“They all feel they’re going to get a knock on their door in the morning. A lot of them are not in good health and there’s a lot of pregnant women.”
Mr O’Mahony said he had talked to one man, who had both refugee status and Irish citizenship, who was awoken along with his family at 7.30am by five gardaí who had him on a list.
“He said, ‘Today broke everything.’ He was clearly very perturbed and uncertain if even his status counted for anything.”
Mr O’Mahony said the campaign had already caused major damage to Garda-immigrant relations.
“The gardaí have done a lot of excellent work in building up relationships with the immigrant community. A lot of that has been undone in one fell swoop.”
However, Garda spokesman Supt John Farrelly described the operation as “a great success” and added that gardaí were being “very humane” in their duties. He said: “It is not our wish to create any stress for any individual properly regularised, but where they’re not, our duty is to carry out this particular operation.”
Aine ni Chonaill of Immigration Control Platform welcomed the operation but said Irish deportation levels were still “risible”.
