The authorities felt some clarity had to be obtained on the vexed issue ofIrish-born children, writes Nuala Haughey.
Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling paving the way for the deportation of immigrant parents of citizens brings some sort of closure to the vexed question which has become known as the "Irish- Born Child" issue.
While refugee lobby groups and Government officials parsed the seven judgments, which extended to 340 pages, fears were already spreading among the thousands of immigrants in similar situations who have applied for residency in Ireland.
Until yesterday, non-EU immigrant parents were almost automatically granted residency on the basis of parentage of an Irish citizen child. This policy was based on a 1990 Supreme Court ruling in the Fajujonu case, which was argued by the present Minister for Justice when he was a senior counsel.
The parents in that case, illegal migrants from Nigeria and Morocco who had lived in the State for around eight years, were allowed to remain here on the basis that their Irish child had the right to the "care, company and parentage" of its parents within the family unit.
However, faced in recent years with rapidly mounting numbers of applications for residency on the basis of having Irish-born children from people who would otherwise face deportation, the authorities felt something had to be done.
Recent revelations that women were targeting Ireland, often in late stages of pregnancy, to avail of the residency and citizenship provision provoked intense public debate. In effect, these parents were "piggy-backing" on the rights of their offspring, in so far as their residency in the State stemmed from the constitutional rights of their citizen children.
Just as officials in the refugee processing area were getting to grips with processing backlogs in asylum claims in the past couple of years, the backlog in the residency area started to grow. In the past two years there were about 9,662 applications to withdraw asylum claims on the basis of parentage of an Irish-born child.
There are currently some 10,500 outstanding applications for residency on this basis, relating to babies born on or after September 2001. Of these, around 8,800 have been or are in the asylum system, while the remainder are non-EU immigrants in other categories, such as workers or students.
Refugee lobby groups and human rights groups raised concerns yesterday that asylum-seekers may have withdrawn their applications in the belief that they were entitled to residency on the basis of having an Irish child. While accepting that not all would have been recognised as refugees, they pointed out that many would have been unaware of the implications of withdrawing from the asylum procedure. Certain individuals could now be facing deportation to a country where there is a threat of persecution, the groups cautioned.
The office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner clarified yesterday that the question of reactivating an application does not apply where asylum applicants had withdrawn their claims for refugee status on the basis of parentage of an Irish-born child before their case has been processed to completion.
In such cases, an applicant may apply for a declaration for refugee status and each case will be dealt with on its own merits, it said.
The initial reaction of Department of Justice officials to the ruling was muted optimism that the decision gives them a basis at last to draw up guidelines for officials deciding future applications, albeit on a labour-intensive case-by-case basis. It also gives greater clarity about the issues the Government should consider in drawing up future legislation.
The judgment does not change the constitutional entitlement of children born in Ireland to Irish citizenship, regardless of the nationality of their parents. This was not disputed by either party in the case. The Minister, Mr McDowell, last night seemed satisfied that in the light of yesterday's decision, there would be no need for a review of the Constitution in this area.
He pointed to the US, where new-borns attain citizenship regardless of the nationality of their parents. Immigrant parents of US citizens facing deportation from that country can take the child with them or arrange for someone else to take care of him or her.
In Ireland, it is likely that health boards would have to care for children if parents were to decide that they would have better lives if they left them behind.