Missing children not taken by gardaí, court told

The Garda National Immigration Bureau yesterday denied in the High Court it had taken two children, aged 8 and 5, from their mother and “distributed them to persons unknown”.

Anthony Moore, counsel for the minister for justice, told Mr Justice Michael White the children now missing, according to their mother Gloria Okeralen, had not been taken by the gardaí and were not in the custody of the gardaí or the HSE.

He said the court had been told last Monday in an Article 40 application seeking Ms Okeralen’s release from Mountjoy Women’s Prison, that gardaí had taken the children when they called at Ms Okeralen’s home in Ballymun to send her back to Nigeria on foot of a deportation order.