The applicants, a non-Irish national and an Irish citizen, were a married couple. A deportation order was in being against the non-Irish (Romanian) spouse, who had been deported from the State. The applicants subsequently spent some time together in Romania. They requested that the order be revoked so that they could live together in Ireland as a family unit. The Minister refused to revoke the order, stating that the applicants had not resided together for an appreciable period of time since the deportation order. The applicants contended that the Minister had failed to consider the impact of a refusal to revoke the deportation order on the applicants’ marital circumstances, as he was obliged to do, that their family rights were infringed and that the refusal to revoke was disproportionate.
The Court quashed the Minister’s decision, finding, inter alia, that the reason advanced for rejecting the application was not logically connected to the discretion exercised, that the Minister took irrelevant material into account and had addressed himself to an issue in respect of a situation that had almost entirely been brought about by the deportation. The court also accepted that the time spent in Romania was appreciable.
