The Department of Justice is to appeal yesterday's High Court ruling that it had breached the rights of hundreds of Irish children, in not taking their welfare into account, when denying their non-Irish parents the right to remain in the State.
A spokeswoman for the department said the Minister would "vigorously contest" the decision in the Supreme Court.
Immigrant groups, however, said they were "delighted" with the ruling by Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan and said the hundreds of parents affected must now be contacted and invited to reapply for leave to remain.
Hilkka Becker, solicitor with the Immigrant Council of Ireland and legal spokeswoman for the Coalition Against the Deportation of Irish Children, said the ruling would affect 566 parents.
She said it was not known how many had already been deported or had voluntarily left the State, although she thought the majority were still here. "The Department of Justice should get in contact with them at their last known address. Not all who are affected will have daily access to Irish newspapers or the news. We are delighted the court has ruled the rights of the child must be taken into account.
"The implication is that the department must now go back and look at the cases refused on the same grounds and see whether they were properly refused."
In her judgment, Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan said the welfare of the Irish citizen child must be taken into account by the Minister when deciding on applications from their non-Irish parents for leave to remain. In her decision on eight test cases, she said the refusal of the parents' applications to remain, with no consideration given to the rights of the Irish- born children, breached their children's rights as Irish citizens guaranteed under the Constitution. She also found the children's rights under the European Convention on Human Rights had been breached.
The background to yesterday's ruling stems from the 2003 Supreme Court decision that non-Irish parents of Irish-born children did not have automatic entitlement to remain here.
In the cases before the High Court yesterday, the common cause for refusal was that the parents had failed to prove they were continuously resident in the State from the birth of their citizen child.
