Fury as officers ignore stay on minors’ deportation

GARDA immigration officers were last night rebuked for ignoring urgent calls from the legal team of two minors and a wheelchair-bound man who were deported this week.

Physically and intellectually-disabled Romanian Claudiu Laras Bita, 19, his brother Christian, 16, and sister Edith Elizabeth, 11, were granted a temporary injunction on Tuesday preventing their deportation.

Their mother, who applied for asylum in 2001, is understood to have travelled to France leaving the children behind with their 24-year-old sister in Tallaght.

However, by the time lawyers acting for the three were able to contact the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) the deportation had already taken place.

The three siblings were part of a group of 25 sent by private charter to Bucharest on Tuesday.

But as lawyers desperately sought an injunction, repeated calls, messages and faxes to individual GNIB officers as well as the GNIB Dublin Airport office went unanswered.

After an injunction was finally granted at approximately 3.30pm on Tuesday afternoon GNIB officers informed the lawyers that the flight had already departed just minutes earlier at 3.12pm.

The High Court heard yesterday the solicitor representing the deportees, Aisling Ryan of Terence Lyons and Co, had relentlessly made telephone calls and sent a fax to the GNIB between 1pm and 2pm on Tuesday. None of the calls was returned.

Irish Refugee Council legal officer Cabrini Gibbons rebuked the GNIB, saying the organisation had shown scant regard for the legal rights of those concerned.

“Our main concern is the fact the GNIB was not in a position to take telephone calls or make any response to the solicitors. That concern is even greater where minors are concerned and a lot of care has to be taken for their welfare,” she said.

In the High Court yesterday Justice Eamon de Valera said the fact that the GNIB could not be contacted disturbed him.

Responding to criticism about the treatment of the deportees, barrister for the State Sara Moorehead said that an interpreter and doctor had been on board the aircraft.

She said that substantial efforts had been made to ensure that somebody would be at the airport in Romania to collect the children and that it was thought they were back with their extended family.