57 Roma to be sent home after immigration swoop
Almost 60 members of the Roma community camped on a roundabout off the M50 motorway face deportation after being removed from the site today.
Immigration officers swooped on the camp on the M50 at Ballymun at around 5am.
Gardaí said 57 Roma boarded a double-decker bus peacefully and were taken to accommodation where they will remain until repatriated to northern Romania. It is understood they will leave Ireland tomorrow.
A few members of the community have stayed at the site.
For the last two months, scores of adults and children have camped in makeshift huts in the undergrowth on the Ballymun sliproad roundabout.
It is understood that up to 15 children, aged from six weeks to nine years old, are among the group, who were living in tents surrounded by rubbish, mud and human excrement.
Three of the children were taken into state care because of squalid living conditions.
Despite having no sanitary provisions, and it being one of the wettest summers on record, the Roma maintain their conditions are an improvement on life back home, an allegation denied by the Romanian Embassy.
Eyewitnesses said there was a heavy garda presence during the removal of the extended Roma family.
Members of the Garda National Immigration Bureau entered the camp, while the Dublin Metropolitan North Division stopped passing traffic.
A garda spokeswoman said the operation was on-going.
Ronnie Fay, of support group Pavee Point, said that, last night, gardaí in Ballymun invited members of the group to attend a meeting at the station where they were encouraged to leave.
She said the garda operation was professional, with no conflict with the Roma people.
However, it is understood that up to 35 members of the community, including children, remained at the site and would be making submissions to Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan as to why they should be allowed to remain in the country.
“Many of the people who are still here this morning are some of the ones who have been here the longest, living in deplorable conditions,” said Ms Fay.
“We have been dealing with them since early May. A lot of the ones that have left only came here last Thursday and they hadn’t realised that the situation had changed.
“We feel that clearly the Government has facilities for these people, and although we don’t expect the Government to have uncontrolled migration, we do expect people to be treated like human beings when they arrive here.”
Since Romanian and Bulgarian joined the EU, citizens are free to travel around Europe but they need work permits to get a job and are not entitled to state benefits or emergency accommodation.
If they are in the state more than three months, they must prove employment.
Immigration papers were first served on 86 members of the extended Roma family living on the roundabout and in a derelict house on the Old Swords Road on Saturday.
Last night, the Minister for Justice confirmed he had served deportation notices on the group, adding that the Roma community would be deported from the state unless they could give a valid reason to remain.
Mr Lenihan said the Romanian community in Ireland had advised him that if the state allowed the Roma people into Ireland, thousands more would follow.
Romanian Ambassador Silvia Davidoiu said many of the people camped on the roundabout were not homeless in Romania, adding that some even have permanent addresses in blocks of flats. Pavee Point said the Ambassador’s claims were not credible.
More than 20 groups, including the Irish Roma Support Group, Pavee Point, and Crosscare, have been supporting the settlers since they arrived and giving them food.
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