Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-16
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

Last year, 122 students from Palestine, many of them coming from the horror of Gaza, were accepted into universities and colleges here to study and were given the visas to do that. Only 22 of those visa applications were refused. This year, 39 were granted and 103 refused. It is clear from the testimony of the colleges, universities, student unions and so on that something has changed, which is quite incredible, in the refusal of visas to people fleeing the most horrific conditions in Gaza. These students have been accepted by the third level institutions and in most cases the fees are not an issue, meaning there is no real cost for the State at all. They come through either sanctuary programmes or sponsors. I was talking to a young Palestinian woman whose two siblings were refused. They have an American sponsor paying the fees, so there is no cost but they are still being refused. This looks like a sort of performative cruelty by the Department of justice. It is asking questions like whether the students can provide bank statements from the last couple of years from Gaza. Gaza has been bombed to bits and subjected to a genocide. The Department has asked the students whether they can prove they are going to return to Gaza. The people of Palestine and Gaza want to go home. Their problem is they are being bombed to bits by Israel and the world allows it to happen. When they are coming here to study, having been accepted by third level institutions, and given their numbers are tiny, could we show a bit of humanity and decency by allowing them to come here to study and giving them visas?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-16