Lawyers for four Gazan students seeking to pursue fully funded courses at Irish universities are seeking a fast-tracked hearing on their challenges over being refused entry visas.
Three of the students are still in Gaza, and one is in Spain after the Spanish government intervened to secure his evacuation.
All four applications are opposed by the Minister for Justice
When they were mentioned before Judge Anthony Barr at the High Court on Tuesday, counsel for the applicants Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh stressed the urgency.
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The time frame is “very tight” because the courses have already begun and the latest date offered by the Irish universities for the students to take them up is November 2nd, she said.
The Israeli authorities require notice by October 15th for evacuation of the students on October 26th in time to take up their courses, said counsel.
The visa refusals were for reasons including that the Gazan students had not provided original documents with their application.
On their behalf, it is argued the civilian infrastructure for them to go to a bank or post office to get such documents no longer exists in Gaza and the Minister’s stance is irrational, unreasonable, disproportionate, discriminatory and fails to react to the necessary urgency of the situation.
Ní Ghrálaigh said, while all four have separately appealed the visa refusals, they were informed by the State such appeals are dealt with in chronological order. That meant it could be a year or more before their appeals are determined with effect; even if their courses are deferred to autumn 2027, they might be too late to take them up then.
That is not an “effective remedy” for the applicants, said counsel.
She added that, “extraordinarily”, one of the four was evacuated from Gaza and reached Madrid with the help of the Spanish government. He is doing a foundation course in Spain, but that is “very different” to his first choice, a fully funded engineering course in Trinity College Dublin, and he still wants to pursue the Irish course.
The refusal of his Irish visa was dated July 15th last. Before that, he was informed by the Irish Embassy in Tel Aviv that further documents were not required from him, but he was later informed his visa was refused due to insufficient documents. This was despite submitting “exactly the same type of paperwork” as Gazan students previously provided, said counsel.
It seemed the refusal followed “a significant change in practice” by the Minister that came “out of the blue” and about which neither visa applicants nor universities here were informed.
The Gazan students who obtained visas this year were State-funded rather than university-funded, she said.
Counsel for the Minister asked that no hearing date be set until all the relevant legal papers were filed by the applicants and she had time to take proper instructions on those.
The judge made directions for the filing of papers and listed the matter for mention on Thursday when he expected the State to set out how much time it required to respond, with a view to fixing a hearing date.
