Visa changes ‘threaten Chernobyl Children’s Project’

THE Chernobyl Children’s Project, which has brought more than 13,000 children from stricken Belarus for holidays and medical care in this country, is now under threat due to changes in Ireland’s visa laws, according to Adi Roche.

Ms Roche, executive director of the Chernobyl project, was speaking at Shannon as 112 boys and girls, aged between five and 14, arrived from Belarus.

They will spend Christmas with Irish families in counties stretching from Cork to Donegal.

Mr Roche said changes in Belarus laws had stopped Irish families adopting children, but new changes in Irish visa laws posed an even greater threat to the entire project.

Ms Roche said that under current rules they can bring in large numbers of children on one group visa.

“But from January, each child will have to have an individual visa. This means that every child from Belarus wishing to travel to Ireland will have to make a long journey to the Irish embassy in Moscow in advance to get a visa. We hope the Department of Justice will revisit this matter,” she said.

She said the huge increase in paperwork would also make it difficult for her organisation to cope with the huge bureaucratic burden.

The new visa requirements, she said, would make it impossible for children in isolated rural areas and in institutional care to get the necessary paperwork to travel to Ireland.

The attitude of the Department of Justice, she added, was in stark contrast to that of the Irish people.

Ms Roche said: “At Christmas time, families like to come together and be with one another and baton down the hatches. But here at Shannon today we have families coming to meet children from Belarus whom they will bring into their homes over Christmas to share the festive season with them in the most generous of ways.

“If you could only see the faces of these children, the look of joy, fun and love.”

She said while many of the 13,000 children who had benefited from the Chernobyl project had come on holiday, a significant number had come to recuperate and get respite care from the after-effects of Chernobyl.

About 150 children from Belarus have been adopted by Irish families since 1990.