‘There’s no backdoor into this country’

“They [the Roma] are a huge social problem in Romania. That’s Romania’s problem, not Ireland’s problem. There is a front door into this country. There isn’t a back door.”

It sounded like Michael McDowell: the blunt statement, combined with the orator’s skill for encapsulating a policy position in a neat image [the doors reference].

In fact, it was Mr McDowell’s successor as justice minister, Brian Lenihan, who made the statement during an appearance on RTÉ’s Questions & Answers.

In a short few sentences, Mr Lenihan emphasised the kind of justice minister he would be. Mr McDowell was tough and Mr Lenihan would be just as tough.

Sure enough, he moved quickly to address the issue of the 100 or so Roma living on a roundabout at the M50.

Despite the fact that many of the Roma had been at the M50 for the best part of two months, it was only in the last fortnight or so that much of the national media fully concentrated on their plight.

As a result, the public debate on whether the Roma should be allowed stay or forced to go home was just beginning.

But the new justice minister effectively cut the debate short by resolving the issue.

His solution was for the Roma to be issued with letters which, in effect, threatened deportation.

In accordance with the Immigration Act 1999, they were given 15 days to make their case to the minister.

They chose not to and were voluntarily repatriated as a result. Mr Lenihan had faced up to his first big test in the justice portfolio and sailed through it.

Of course, his handling of the matter was not without criticism.

Pavee Point, the organisation representing Travellers, said it was “disappointed but not surprised” the Government’s response had been to the threat of deportation.

“We are further disappointed that the Irish Government have not used this opportunity to comment on the conditions facing Roma in Romania that resulted in Roma families preferring to live on a muddy and dangerous roundabout in Ireland rather than return to the conditions that forced them to leave Romania in the first place,” the organisation added.

Both Pavee Point and other support groups and NGOs pointed to a host of reports documenting the conditions the Roma have to endure in Romania.

The Children’s Rights Alliance, for example, cited a report published by Unicef this year which focused on the plight of Roma children and found that, in Romania and seven other states in south-eastern Europe, they suffered “widespread discrimination and physical segregation”.

Such discrimination kept “Roma on the margins of society and help perpetuate the cycle of poverty and exclusion from one generation to the next”.

But Mr Lenihan’s concern from the beginning was the precedent that would be set if the Roma were allowed stay. He cited the advice of members of the Romanian community in Ireland who told him thousands more would follow if the precedent were set.

With such remarks, he was again virtually echoing his predecessor. Michael McDowell had announced in January that he was tightening the refugee applications system here to “deal with the influx of Romanian asylum-seekers”.

Essentially what Mr McDowell did was to ensure that citizens of EU member states could not apply for asylum in Ireland except in rare and exceptional circumstances. As Romania had just joined the EU, it effectively meant asylum-seekers from the country would no longer be tolerated.

“I am taking this firm action now in order to prevent the institution of asylum and our asylum determination process being resorted to for purposes other than those for which they are intended,” Mr McDowell said at the time.

Mr Lenihan has been equally firm. In fact, he has gone a couple of steps further. He has asked his department to investigate the conduct of Pavee Point during the M50 episode, on the basis that the organisation receives State funding.

At question will be whether Pavee Point actively encouraged the Roma to “set aside the laws of the State”, Mr Lenihan said. Pavee Point, for the record, has denied any such behaviour.

Mr Lenihan also asked his department to review the existing immigration legislation — legislation which Mr McDowell himself had already toughened — to see if it could be toughened further.

There are, of course, ways in which Mr Lenihan will be very different to his predecessor. Mr McDowell was combative, divisive and at times bombastic. To date in his political career, Mr Lenihan has shown none of those traits.

He will handle the justice portfolio in a different manner. But just like Mr McDowell, it appears, he will be unyielding if and when he sees fit.