LAST UPDATE | 5 Jun

THE PRINCIPAL OF a school that was attended by two of the children who were deported to Nigeria last night has said that staff and pupils have been left “devastated”.

Five children and thirty adults were removed from Ireland on a chartered flight last night as part of the Department of Justice’s new crackdown on enforcing immigration rules. 

Ciarán Cronin, the principal of St James Primary school in Dublin 8 today told The Journal that two of the children who were removed from the state had been pupils at his school for three years, and have in that time become an integral part of the community there. 

“They’ve been part of our football team, part of our school fabric, part of our school lives,” he said. 

Cronin said that the youngest child didn’t speak when he arrived at the school for the first few months. 

“Once he started to speak, when he was comfortable enough, he became the most beautiful young fella,” the principal added. 

Families left feeling ‘unsafe’ 

The families of the children were removed from the Red Cow IPAS centre in Dublin. Cronin said that other pupils at his school witnessed their deportation and have been distressed by it. 

“They are all wondering, will they be next? Their own feeling of self-worth is just through the floor now,” he said. 

Cronin said that the atmosphere in the school now is “As if someone has passed away.” 

“That’s amongst staff and children. We’ve had to explain to all the friends that their two friends won’t be back, that unfortunately, they didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, but that hopefully, when they settle back in, we’ll be able to do a Whatsapp video call with them to say hello,” he added. 

Cronin said that the school has advocated for the children to the Minister of Justice and local politicians, and that St James has had “no support” as a school in relation to dealing with the deportation of two of its students. 

At the Red Cow IPAS centre, a mother who is a resident there today told The Journal said that her children were “in tears” on their way to school after witnessing their two friends being removed from the centre by gardaí. 

“My daughter asked me, ‘Can we get out of the hotel and look for another place before they deport us? What do we tell them?” she said. 

The woman added that she and her family no longer feel “safe” at the centre.

Gardaí were carrying out Ministerial order

A garda source has told The Journal that the families of the two children “were given a date and time and were ready to leave when gardaí arrived there”.

The source further said that all of the men who were due for deportation were picked up in advance, and were placed in custody for a number of weeks. 

They said that a decision was made to not pick up mothers and children in advance so as to “limit the trauma”. 

They added that the deportees were offered financial assistance previously to leave the State voluntarily “but did not avail of it”. 

“The gardaí were then executing the order issued by the Minister for Justice,” the source said. 

Speaking on RTÉ News at One Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan said that this is the third chartered flight in the lifetime of this Government. 

He said that deportations “aren’t a very pleasant part of the job,” adding, “I’ll be frank with you”. 

“The first two came into Georgia, the last one went into Lagos, it went late last night and landed early this morning. There were 23 men on board, seven women, five children,” the Minister said. 

He added that in order to ensure Ireland’s immigration system is “rules based”, it is important to ensure that people who have been served a deportation order who do not comply with it are met with “a response and a consequence”. 

He said without deportations the system becomes “meaningless”, and it won’t make a difference whether people are granted asylum or not. 

O’Callaghan said that deportation flights will now be “fairly frequent and regular”. 

He said that the cost of the flight was €324,714. 

Speaking to The Journal today, the Minister for Children Norma Foley also said that immigration in Ireland needs to be “rules based”. 

She went on to say that parents of children who are to be deported should consider leaving voluntarily, with an offer of assistance “as an option”. 

“It would be in the best interest of everyone if you would do that voluntarily, this measure of being compelled to leave, that’s a measure of last resort,” Foley said. 

However, the Minister also said: “I absolutely accept it’s a really, really challenging space and very difficult”. 

With reporting from Niall O’Connor, Eoghan Dalton, Jane Matthews and Christina Finn.