Refugee Council calls for inquiry into baby case

The Irish Refugee Council is calling for an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the case of a Romanian woman who gave birth on board a ferry having been turned away from Ireland just hours before.

The woman was one of a group of six people turned away by Irish authorities when they arrived in Rosslare on Friday. Immigration officials have said they did not realise that the woman was pregnant at the time.

However Peter O'Mahony of the Irish Refugee Council is objecting to the lack of human rights monitoring in such situations.

"We understand that within the last year there were at least 3,000 people turned away on arrival in the State.

"Some of them we feel, certainly over the last few weeks, have been trying to claim asylum and one of the big difficulties of course is that all of this is happening effectively behind closed doors.

"There is no human rights monitoring presence of any sort. So it is impossible to know what is going on and an enquiry would be helpful."