Where the non-national parents of children born in the State are being deported, the constitutional rights of their Irish-born children are best met through the children leaving with their families, the State has argued before the High Court.
When those children were capable of independent living, they could live here if they chose.
Mr Patrick McCarthy SC also said the courts had decided in several cases that the State was entitled to control entry and exit to the country. The numbers of non-nationals seeking to remain here had risen to almost 11,000 in 2000 and maintaining the integrity of the asylum system was a legitimate aspect of public policy.
The State was adhering to the provisions of the Dublin Convention, an agreement which involved applications for asylum being dealt with in the first country of arrival, counsel added. The Czech family and the Nigerian man had first applied for asylum in the UK and were refused.
What the State was doing was operating a consistent immigration policy and the applicants were seeking to circumvent the Dublin Convention, he said.
Counsel was making submissions for the State in the continuing legal challenge by the Czech family of two parents and four children, of whom the youngest, a boy, was born here last November, and by a Nigerian man, whose son was born here last October. They are seeking to overturn orders for the deportation of the Czech parents and their three non-Irish children and for the deportation of the Nigerian man.
The applicants, all of whom arrived in Ireland last year, say their Irish-born children have a constitutional right to the care, company and parentage of their non-national parents and siblings in Ireland. They also claim the constitutional protection afforded to the family unit requires the State to permit the Irish-born children's non-national families remain with them here. They have also asserted rights of residency on behalf of their Irish-born children.
Earlier yesterday, Mr Bill Shipsey SC, for the applicants, said the Supreme Court's decision in the Fajujonu case made clear that the constitutional rights of Irish-born citizens could be infringed only for compelling reasons.
Mr Gerard Hogan SC, also for the applicants, said the problem with the State's approach was that it was looking at the situation through the eyes of the non-national parents. It was justifying the deportation orders on the basis of "a wonderful bureaucratic euphemism", the need to maintain the "integrity of the asylum system", but that euphemism could not be invoked to trample on the rights of an Irish-born child.
The case continues today.
