Thirty-seven people with Irish-born children have been deported in the past 20 months, the Minister for Justice has told the Dáil.
Mr McDowell said that the 37 deportations were "infinitesimal" compared to up to 16,000 non-national parents of Irish-born children "who have claimed to remain in the State by virtue of having a child born in Ireland".
Those figures "give the lie to the suggestion that I am busily deporting these people on a wholesale basis. The number of occasions where I have directed a parent to bring their child out of Ireland is infinitesimal as a percentage of those figures," he insisted.
Mr McDowell said that of the 37 deportees only "a handful" were parents who left their children in Ireland in the care of others, although he did not have the precise figure because those deported did not inform the authorities.
Mr Ciarán Cuffe (Green, Dún Laoghaire) had asked about the State's duty under the Child Care Act to take care of children left in Ireland by their deported parents.
Mr McDowell said that if parents made a choice in good faith to leave their child in the custody of a relative or friend who will look after the child, "I cannot legally interfere with that arrangement".
During Justice questions, the Minister told Fine Gael's justice spokesman, Mr Jim O'Keeffe, that "I do not have some rule of thumb" for deportations. Mr O'Keeffe had asked what made the Minister proceed with the deportation of the parents of an Irish child, "people who have been in the State for quite a long time and who have children born before the Supreme Court decision of early 2003".
Every case was examined individually and deportation was only necessary to prevent immigration law from being completely undermined, said the Minister.
"The number of circumstances that would cause one to stay one's hand in respect of any child and its parents being deported are almost infinite," Mr McDowell said.
"Very strong reasons can be found, why people who would otherwise be strictly liable for deportation should not be deported on a moral values basis." The Minister also insisted that he was "not prepared to operate on the basis that I must consider every economic migrant into Ireland, a permanent resident".
He said that "the notion that I must deal with everyone as if they are going to live here forever is not realistic".
He was responding to Mr Cuffe who said that a significant number of immigrants wanted to make their permanent home in Ireland, and in many cases they were allowed into the country "on sufferance".
Calling for a "strong and coherent work policy", Mr Cuffe said immigrants were treated like second-class citizens and claimed the current work permit system treated immigrants like "indentured servants".
