Nigerian woman Pamela Izevbekhai and her two daughters, Jemima and Naomi, with Mayor Of Sligo Veronica Cawley at a civic reception in the town hall in Sligo yesterday. Ms Izevbekhai thanked the people of Sligo for their support.NIGERIAN WOMAN Pamela Izevbekhai last night thanked the people of Sligo for their love and support at a civic reception hosted in her honour at the town hall.
The Mayor of Sligo, Councillor Veronica Cawley (Lab), said she organised the reception in response to many requests from "the ordinary people of Sligo" who wanted to celebrate bonds formed with Pamela and her daughters Naomi and Jemima over the past four years, a woman who she said had "touched many hearts".
Ms Cawley called for a worldwide ban on the "horrific practice" of female genital mutilation and said she wished to acknowledge all that Pamela had done to raise awareness of this issue.
The mayor pointed out that people in Sligo were aware that Pamela and her daughters might be leaving soon, but whatever her future "our hearts go out to her".
Ms Izevbekhai has lost a long legal battle to block her deportation on the grounds that her daughters are likely to endure forced genital mutilation if they return.
Deportation orders have been postponed until next Wednesday pending a decision from the European Court of Human Rights on whether they will hear her case. Last night, Ms Izevbekhai said she was holding her breath on the court's decision.
She told the gathering in the town hall that her inspiration was her oldest daughter Elizabeth who died in 1994, having undergone genital mutilation. She broke down as she said: "It has not been easy, but I know she is here and she has given us this job to do."
Shane Donnelly, a friend of the family and spokesman for the Let Them Stay lobby group, said he was honoured to speak for Elizabeth Izevbekhai because she could not speak for herself.
"This is all about remembering Elizabeth and making sure that what happened to her does not happen to her sisters," he said.
Source Irish Times
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....."I am organizing a workshop on behalf of the (radio section) of the Community Media Forum which is part of the Dublin Community Forum.
The workshop will be directed at immigrants involved in the different Dublin community radio stations, and those immigrants who want to get involved in community radio.
The Agenda proposed for this meeting would be
We are are hoping to organize the workshop on a Saturday morning (lunch provided) probably at the end of the moth of November, 29th.
If you, or someone from your organization is interested in attending this workshop, please contact me at your earliest convenience to confirm your interest."......
There will be no charge for attending this workshop
Cormac O Donnel
http://visualartists.ie/AP_
The European Council of Artists (ECA) is holding its Annual Conference in Dublin from 7 to 8 November 2008. The ECA is an umbrella body composed of interdisciplinary artists’ councils and artists’ organisations from 25 European countries. One of its main events each year is its Annual Conference which brings together artists and their representatives, cultural operators, politician’s and MEP’s with particular interests in culture along with representatives from national and European institutions. This year’s conference includes papers on the following topics: artistic freedom in a globalised world, the European Arrest Warrant, borders, visa issues & cultural diversity, and the role of the European Parliament in the promotion of artists’ mobility. The following 6 international speakers will present and discuss on the topic of artists’ mobility:
Eva Lichtenberger, MEP, Austria; Maria Badia i Cutchet, MEP, Spain; Lolita Jablonskiene, Chief curator National Gallery of Art, Lithuania, and ambassador of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue; Pauline Hadaway, director of Belfast Exposed, Northern Ireland; Ole Reitov, Freemuse - Freedom of Musical Expression, Denmark;Helena Drnovšek Zorko, Division of International Cultural Relations, Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
.A conference programme and Booking Form are available to download from the VAI website (http://www.visualartists.ie/
You don't need to be an Irish passport holder to vote. You can be a foreigner who came to the country for any reason but you should have 6 month stay before you are eligible to do so
Interviewing Cormack O'Donnell
The strategic manager in the office of Integration in the Dublin city Council
Members Making TV
Following on from the success of the "Studio on a Stage" held as part of the launch events in July this year.
Monica Harkin
THREE CHILDREN and their father have unnecessarily remained in an Ethiopian refugee camp for the last three years apart from their mother, who has refugee status here, due to the Department of Justice's failure to tell the woman it had in 2005 approved her application for them to live in Ireland, the High Court has heard.
Up to early this week, the department had still not issued visas for the father and children to come here but, after the mother initiated High Court proceedings, its lawyers told the court on Monday that the visas would be issued imminently.
The 30-year-old mother said she had finally been told by a department official last month the visas would be sent to the Irish embassy in Addis Ababa for her family to collect, but when her husband and three children went to the embassy, it told them they had had no communication from the department about visas and there were no visas.
She then initiated her High Court action for orders requiring the visas to be issued and damages, including aggravated and exemplary damages, for breaches of her rights, including to family reunification.
"I have been very distressed by being apart from my husband and children knowing they are at risk where they are and am extremely upset at the time it has taken to secure visas . . . to enable them to travel to Ireland to join me," she said in an affidavit.
"The time apart from them can never be replaced. I have lost three years with my children as they grow up." The family are Somalian and the mother fled from there to Ireland in late 2003.
She secured refugee status in August 2004 and applied to the minister for justice in late 2004 for permission for her family to join her and for visas to be issued for them.
She said she received an acknowledgement of her application from the department, stating it had referred it to the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (Orac) for investigation. In August 2005, Orac told her it had completed its investigation.
The woman said she now knew, as a result of having late last year obtained her file from the Department of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act, that the department had drafted letters in late August 2005 stating it had granted visas to her husband and children. However, it seemed those letters were never sent and she was never told of the decision.
Because she was unaware of these letters, she said she continued to presume during 2005, 2006 and 2007 that her application was still being processed and she wrote on several occasions to the department in an unsuccessful bid to find out what was happening to it. The delay was "very upsetting" for her and she wrote to the department of her anxiety.
The Refugee Information Service had also in July 2007 written to the department on her behalf urging it to process her application at the earliest opportunity.
She said she did not receive a reply to her letters but was aware the department had received them because they were on its file of her case. She had hired solicitors who in late 2007 obtained that file under the Freedom of Information Act, the department having initially refused to release the file.
When she saw the file, she learned of the August 2005 decision and was extremely upset she had not been informed of it.
After failing to reply to several letters from her solicitor urging that visas be issued, the department had replied on June 16th last by simply enclosing copies of the August 2005 letters, she said.
On June 24th, 2008, an official from the "family reunification section" of the department said the visas for her husband and children would be available at the Irish Embassy in Addis Ababa, but when her family arrived there on June 30th, there were no visas.
Her solicitor again wrote to the department on July 1st seeking confirmation by July 7th that the visas would be issued or else legal proceedings would be initiated. No reply was received to that letter or to a reminder of July 8th.
In those circumstances, she said she had no alternative but to bring her judicial review proceedings against the Minister for Justice.
Mr Justice John Hedigan ordered last week that the department should explain matters to the court. When the case was mentioned this week to Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan, counsel for the department said the visas would be reissued and it was expected this would resolve matters. The case was returned to tomorrow when the court will be updated on progress.
In her action, the woman claims failure to inform her of the 2005 decision on the visas breaches provisions of the Refugee Act 1996, the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.
A GROUP of Nigerians was deported from the State on Tuesday night on a special charter flight to Lagos.
Gardaí confirmed yesterday that the flight was part of a joint operation involving nine European countries, including France, Spain and Germany. A total of 41 people were deported on the flight, seven of whom were Irish-based.
The operation was assisted by the Warsaw-based EU border security agency, Frontex, which co- ordinates co-operation between member states in the management of external borders.
The Garda National Immigration Bureau had planned to repatriate more Nigerians on this week's flight, but last-minute injunctions kept the number of deportees to seven.
Rosanna Flynn of the Residents Against Racism group said a Nigerian woman and her two children were at the airport when their lawyer secured an injunction preventing their removal from the State. Ms Flynn criticised the "mysterious" and "covert" deportation process, saying it was "grossly out of order" that so little was known about the flights in advance. Citing security reasons, gardaí routinely refuse to confirm details of deportation flights in advance.
"That woman still had a legal path to go down. She was lucky to be got out just in time. How many people are there like her? The system needs more transparency - at least the lawyers could be kept informed," Ms Flynn added.
This week's multinational deportation is one of just a few such operations from the Republic. In March a group of Ghanaians was deported from Dublin on a charter flight, having been assembled here from a number of European countries. Only one of those who travelled that day was deported by the Irish authorities.
Gardaí did not want to deport just one person on the aircraft, which seats about 110 people, and so offered other EU states seats for any Ghanaians they were waiting to deport. That operation was assisted by Frontex.
The operation is believed to have cost at least €100,000.
While applications for refugee status in the Republic are at their lowest level in more than a decade, the largest share of asylum applicants last year came from Nigeria, followed by Iraq, China, Pakistan, Georgia and Sudan.
Source: Irish Times
Immigrant groups have given a warm welcome to a ruling by Europe's highest court that spouses of EU citizens who are not themselves citizens of the union are free to live in Ireland.
Irish legislation currently requires that an EU national and their spouse must have resided together in another EU Member State before coming here.
However, the European Court of Justice ruled today that these laws are contrary to an EU Directive on freedom of movement.
The Immigrant Council of Ireland said thousands of people who were in "legal limbo" would now have much greater certainty over their future in the State.
"We're very glad to see the European Court of Justice has upheld the freedom of movement provisions in the EU Treaty in such a strong fashion," said the Immigrant Council of Ireland senior solicitor, Hilkka Becker.
"The Government's interpretation of the law has led to situations where EU nationals, who were already resident and working in Ireland, were told they could not have their spouses join them here. This effectively forced them in many cases to leave their jobs and return home," she said.
One of the four couples involved in the case expressed delight with ruling today.
Nigerian national Hencheal Ikogho (33), who has been living in Ireland for the last four years, was served with deportation orders shortly after getting engaged to UK national Donna Ikogho.
The couple, based in Killarney, Co Kerry, said they have been living on tenterhooks over recent months in anticipation of the court's ruling.
"I'm totally relieved - we had been trying to put it to the back of our minds," said Donna Ikogho. "Our future was totally up in the air. I couldn't help crying when I heard the news. I was crying, looking at my new-born son, who looks so much like his father. Now it looks like our future is so much more secure," she said.
The Department of Justice, meanwhile, declined to comment except to say that officials are studying the ruling.
Part of the reason for the Government's stance on restricting residency rights was due to concerns over "marriages of convenience".
The Immigrant Council of Ireland said that while these were legitimate concerns, it was of the view that each application should be considered on its own merits rather than introducing a blanket ban.
However, Fine Gael spokesman on immigration and integration Denis Naughten said that while he welcomed the clarity brought by the judgment, it also created "a chasm" between rights of Irish and EU citizens.
"EU citizens and their non-European spouses now have far greater rights to reside in Ireland than Irish citizens and their non-EU spouses," he said.
“Under current law, any Irish person married to someone from outside the EU does not have a legal entitlement to bring their spouse to live with them in Ireland. This includes American and Australian nationals, who must apply individually to the Immigration and Naturalisation Service.
“But as a result of the court decision today, this stringent ruling does not apply to citizens from any other EU country who is married to someone from outside the EU. Citizens from any of the other 26 EU countries can bring their non-EU family members into Ireland."
He described the anomaly as "ridiculous and unfair" and said those who had emigrated to the US, Australia and other countries and who now wanted to return to Ireland were facing obstacles because of these laws
The Meeting took place on Friday 11th July 2008 Whitefriar Carmelite Community Centre, Gymnasium 2nd floor, Aungier Street , Dublin 2
Introduction to Volunteering Ireland by Chiara Magini
Introduction to Integrating Ireland By Aki Stavrou
