Sir, – Over recent days, letter writers to this newspaper have expressed their shock and dismay at the refusal of visas to students from Gaza awarded academic scholarships by Irish universities. I too have been receiving correspondence this week, from heartbroken Palestinian students and scholars still in Gaza, distraught at the unexpected refusal of visas.
These are students from a genocide zone who have demonstrated academic excellence despite all the enormous obstacles in their way. They have secured funded scholarships to study here, but then been refused visas in what appears to be a substantive change of approach by the Department of Justice, compared with last year’s practice.
I have also heard from many senior academics in a range of higher education institutions who have put enormous effort into supporting these students through the process and who are now outraged at this lack of consistency, and the lack of co-ordination across Government.
The Department of Justice’s refusals appear starkly at odds with the approach to Palestinian students adopted by the departments of Foreign Affairs and of Further and Higher Education. As the Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan must know, the wholesale refusal of visas is not only devastating for the students affected and their families, it is also undermining the credibility of our academic institutions and affecting Ireland’s reputation as a country that has shown immense solidarity with Palestine and with Gaza. We need an urgent review of these visa refusals. – Yours, etc,
RM Block
Ivana Bacik,
Leinster House,
Dublin 2.
