Almost 300 Romanians expelled from Ireland in 8 months

Romanian citizens represent the biggest community within the European Union who have accepted to be repatriated from Ireland in January-August 2008. The majority pertain to the Rroma community. The program was introduced in the last years by the Irish government and is destined to non-Irish European citizens who face financial difficulties and cannot handle life in Ireland. Thus, people receive one way return tickets to their home country and small amounts of money.

In some of the cases, the European law on migration is applied, that rules that some EU citizens be expelled to their country if they have broken the laws and engaged in illegal activities while residing in another EU country.

In the first eight months of the year, some 511 European citizens were expelled to their home countries. Most of them are from Romania – 298, while others come from Poland (118) and Hungary (24). Local authorities declare that Gypsies in Ireland cannot find ways to live on their due, in part to legal work restrictions or some because they have no qualification whatsoever.

Ireland allocates every year some 250,000 euro for this program.