Opposition parties have called for a review of immigration policy in the wake of the controversy over the deportation of the Nigerian student who will now be permitted to return to Ireland to sit his leaving certificate exams.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny questioned whether Minister for Justice Michael McDowell had actually read the deportation order for Olunkunle Eluhanla.
He raised the issue in the Dáil as Minister for Finance Brian Cowen welcomed the decision yesterday morning by Mr McDowell to allow the Palmerstown Community School student, who was deported to Lagos last week, back into Ireland.
Mr Kenny asked how the Minister could suddenly reverse an "independent decision. Did he read the report on the order that was signed in the first instance?"
Labour's justice spokesman Joe Costello welcomed the Minister's "U-turn". "The Minister had said he would not be able to make such a decision in the case of a youngster who was about to do his Leaving Certificate because the floodgates would open if he did so."
In the Dáil earlier this week, Mr McDowell had rejected appeals for the deportation to be reversed and said that immigration policy was not just theory, it applied to real people.
Outside the Dáil yesterday, he accepted that he had made an error and that it was the wrong decision to deport Olunkunle, whose classmates have protested for the past week, seeking his return.
Mr Costello claimed the deportation system was a "shambles" because of its "lack of due process", but Mr Cowen said the policy in place was working well.
He said an immigration Bill would be introduced and "these matters can be further discussed" in the context of that legislation. "I commend Minister McDowell for the decision he made this morning."
Ciarán Cuffe (Green Party, Dún Laoghaire) said Olunkunle's situation was not unique as many other people were in similar positions. He called on the Government to look sympathetically, in the forthcoming immigration Bill, at the cases of young people who were being deported simply because they reached 18 years of age.
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said it was clear the system was in need of "urgent review". It was "disgraceful that a young child was snatched from a classroom. Surely what is considered today as wrong was just as wrong yesterday."
The Immigration and Residency Bill is expected later this year.
