A woman who stole almost €10,000 from a 92-year-old man whom she was caring for has failed to prevent her deportation to Zimbabwe.
Fiona Mubango (31), New Haven Bay, Balbriggan, Co Dublin, was jailed for three years in January 2011 after pleading guilty to stealing from the man using two of his credit cards during three months in 2008.
Before sentencing, she was given opportunities to come up with compensation for him but failed to do so.
The sentencing judge told her she had sought to make fools both of the court and of her own counsel and has aspirations of a lifestyle beyond her economic capabilities.
She was given temporary release in May 2012.
The Minister for Justice made a deportation order against her in February 2013 which was revoked when Ms Mubango brought judicial review proceedings. A second deportation order in 2013 was also revoked when she took another legal challenge.
After a third deportation order was made last June, she sought permission of the High Court to challenge that.
Her application was rejected on Monday by Mr Justice Richard Humphreys. He said the Minister was clearly entitled to regard the woman as "a good candidate for deportation" having regard to the "particularly repulsive nature of her crime as well as her failure to compensate her victim".
Central issue
The judge said the central issue in her application was whether there were substantial grounds for contending there was a flaw in the Minister’s analysis of Ms Mubango’s European Convention right to a private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ms Mubango arrived here from Zimbabwe in 2001 and stayed on a student visa, and as a dependent of another family member who was an Irish citizen, for the next 10 years. Her parents and one of her siblings are Irish citizens.
Mr Justice Humphreys said no substantial grounds were shown for the proposition the Minister’s decision to deport was invalid.
Having regard to the fact Ms Mubango abused the hospitality of the State to offend against a vulnerable person, it did not appear necessary for the court to facilitate a judicial review of that withdrawal of hospitality, he said.
It was not the case there was any infirmity in the Minister’s analysis of her right to private life entitlement and the Minister could still have lawfully concluded the factors favouring deportation outweighed any such right, he said.