DUBLIN—In a case that has drawn scrutiny here, the Irish authorities on Thursday promised to review the circumstances under which two blond, blue-eyed Roma children were removed from their families in different parts of the country this week—only to be returned when DNA testing confirmed their parentage.
But a rights group called the government review, pledged by Justice Minister Alan Shatter, inadequate, insisting that a full independent inquiry should scrutinize the episodes, which some Roma representatives called racial profiling.
The removal and return of the children by the Irish police followed the jailing of a Roma couple in central Greece on Monday over the suspected abduction of a child found when police officers raided an encampment.
The events in Ireland provoked widespread concern that the children—a 7-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy—were removed from their families solely on the basis of claims that they did not look like Roma, who are generally dark-haired and olive-skinned, with brown eyes.
In a terse statement issued on Wednesday night, the police said the protection of vulnerable children was of “paramount importance” but would not elaborate on why they had removed the two Roma children. No arrests were made in either case, and there was no suggestion of abuse.
Speaking in Parliament, Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore said there were questions to be answered.
"I’d like to know the nature of the complaints or information that was given," he said. "I’d like to know what was the immediate and serious threat to their safety which was considered to justify their removal."
Martin Collins, a director of Pavee Point, a rights group representing the Roma, who number an estimated 5,000 in Ireland, said that both cases showed “racial profiling in the extreme” and that the organization wanted an independent inquiry.
He said he feared that more children who were not dark-skinned and brown-eyed “could be taken away, one after the other, for DNA test after DNA test.”
"It’s outrageous. It’s despicable," he added.
In a statement on Thursday afternoon, Frances Fitzgerald, the minister for children, said that under Irish law, the police had the right to remove a child when there were “reasonable grounds for believing that there is an immediate and serious risk to the health or welfare” of the child. However, she said, this power should be used only in exceptional circumstances.
The children were returned to their families on Wednesday. A lawyer for the girl’s family said her removal was traumatic.
"They do not accept that this was any proper or sufficient basis to take their daughter away from them," the lawyer said in a statement. "They believe that there are very serious questions arising about the procedures used in this case."
Ireland has rigorous child protection laws that prevent the authorities from revealing details of individual cases or identifying children and their families by name. But confidentiality may be waived by the parents, as it has been in the case of the 2-year-old boy, Iancu Muntean, who has the same name as his father.
Mr. Muntean said he had asked the police who was responsible for the order to remove his child. “What makes you take my baby?” he said.
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