Immigrant parents affected by the Supreme Court judgment on residency claim they were wrongly advised. Lorna Siggins in Galway reports
"Sharon", a Nigerian mother of five children, is one of a large number of asylum-seekers in Galway who will be directly affected by this week's Supreme Court judgment. She believes she is one of over 100 families in the city who withdrew applications for refugee status under the mistaken impression that an application for residency was the more favourable route.
She is now "devastated" by the judgment and too terrified to give her real name, being well known as one of the initiators of a voluntarily-run creche for asylum-seekers in the west of the city.
The Galway Refugee Support Group said yesterday it was very concerned about Sharon and many in her situation who gave birth to children here and who may have been advised by officials to take the residency, rather than the refugee, route on this basis.
"Our evidence is anecdotal, but we know lots of people who dropped their claims for asylum on advice which we believe came from official sources," Ms Celine Geoffret, community development worker with the Galway Refugee Support Group, told The Irish Times yesterday.
"The rumours were so virulent that all of the groups involved with asylum-seekers in Galway met to try and see how we could correct the misinformation.
"We encouraged all of them to re-enter the asylum application system, but the take-up was not great," Ms Geoffret said. "Many would have genuine cases for asylum. Now we are seeking clarification on this judgment because it has very serious implications for many people here."
Sharon, who is in her late 20s, says she had to leave Nigeria when her local Catholic church was burned and several members of her congregation were killed. She had to leave four children behind, the oldest 12 and the youngest just one year and four months, and was pregnant on arrival in Ireland in October 2001. Her baby boy is now 16 months old.
"I had applied for refugee status, but then I withdrew it because I thought that a residency application would be quicker. But I put in that application over a year ago, and it is still being dealt with," Sharon said.
"I realise now I didn't have enough information, and there are many people like me who didn't understand the system. If I had known the full implications, or if the refugee process had been shorter, I would not have looked for residency because of the birth of my son here."
Sharon said she was aware of comments on the judgment made by the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell. "But if he is not going to deport everybody, on what basis will he decide? I know many people who are in the same position as me, and today we are very confused and depressed."
She had hoped, if she was awarded residency, she would seek employment and bring her family over. "I don't want to sit doing nothing. A lot of Irish people seem to have misinformation about us, and they think we are buying cars and mobile phones on social welfare cheques.
"That is just not the case for most of us, and I know many friends who just want to work. No one wants to live on the allowance of €19 10 cents a week."
It was a combination of frustration and concern for other women like her that led Sharon to form the crèche in a west Galway hotel. The crèche is run voluntarily, five mornings a week, with no charge to the mothers who avail of it.
She believes the Supreme Court judgment was "purely political". She believes the Government has a duty to correct some of the false truths being propagated about genuine asylum-seekers.