DNA test proves Eritrean girl Martina Padwick is Irish

The Dublin solicitor Anthony Joyce (disclosure: he is a client) has been working on  an incredible case recently, the results of which are featured on the front page of today’s Sunday Times  (link and article below).  Martina Padwick is a six year old Eritrean girl whose Mother Martha has been trying to get her right to an Irish passport recognised by the Department of Foreign Affairs because her father is the late Martin Padwick who was a soldier serving with the Irish Amy in Eritrea.

DNA tests have now confirmed that Martina is Martin’s daughter and she can now rightly claim her Irish passport. This case has huge ramifications for the Irish Government and the Army – who knows how many other Irish children are elsewhere in the developing countries.

Anthony Joyce, Principal solicitor of Dublin based law firm Anthony Joyce & Co, who acted on behalf of Martina on a pro-bono basis and today issued this statement, says:

“Today’s Sunday Times featured a front page story on Martina Padwick the Eritrean girl who is the daughter of the late Martin Padwick, a former Irish soldier with the Irish UN peace keeping force in Eritrea. After a long battle for an Irish passport and citizenship of the Republic of Ireland, and following protracted negotiations with the Departmemt of Foreign Affairs, we are pleased to announce the Department of Foreign Affairs have now accepted that Martina is the daughter of the late Martin Padwick entitling her to an Irish passport.

“For all of her life Martina has been living in poverty in Eritrea and her mother Martha has suffered discrimination for being the mother of a foreign child. Their situation was so desperate that Martina was close to having to give her daughter to a local orphanage to ensure her wellbeing. Following the conclusive proof that she is now an Irish citizen she will be entitled to an Irish passport. Martina is now able to come to Ireland where she can be educated, have proper healthcare and other benefits of being an Irish Citizen.

Anthony will be commenting on these issues in more detail shortly.

Here is a link to the story and it is also pasted in below.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article6991201.ece

DNA TEST PROVES ERITREAN GIRL IS IRISH

A six-year-old African girl is to be given an Irish passport following DNA tests that prove she is the daughter of an Irish soldier who died before she was born.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) had refused to accept that Martina Padwick was the daughter of Martin Padwick, a soldier from Cork who died in December 2002 shortly after returning from a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in Asmara, the Eritrean capital.

The Irish government may now be required to offer her protection and make provision for her education, as all Irish children are legally entitled to free primary schooling.

The existence of the child, born in June 2003, has been known to the DFA since 2004, but officials refused to issue a passport on the basis that Martha Woldu Hagos, her mother, needed to “establish by formal means” the father’s identity. She met Padwick while working in the kitchen at the UN compound in Asmara.

The DFA agreed to carry out a DNA test last October after The Sunday Times highlighted the case.

Hagos said: “The DFA wrote to me last week to say the DNA test had proved that Martin was Martina’s father. I don’t know what to say, I am so happy. Actually I am the happiest woman in the whole of Eritrea right now.”

Anthony Joyce, a Dublin-based solicitor who represents Hagos and her daughter, claimed they had suffered while waiting for the government to recognise Martina as an Irish citizen. “Martha suffered discrimination in her community as a result of having a white child. She was living in poverty, and at one stage she considered putting Martina into an orphanage where she could be guaranteed food and shelter,” said Joyce.

“Martina’s case should send a warning to the DFA. In certain circumstances the government is obliged to have ‘due regard for the natural and imprescriptible rights of the child’ under the constitution. This case highlights the need for the state to prioritise applications for Irish passports from minors living abroad.”

Brian O’Shea, the Labour party spokesman on military affairs who raised Martina’s plight in the Dail, criticised the DFA’s handling of the case. “No Irish citizen should ever be treated in such a manner,” he said.

“This child was forced to live in what can be best described as adverse conditions in Eritrea for years, although she was an Irish citizen. The state had a responsibility to Martina, but didn’t fulfil its obligations to this girl. Any proposal by this child and her mother to come to Ireland should be treated as sympathetically as possible.”

Billy Timmins, the Fine Gael spokesman on foreign affairs, called on Micheál Martin, the foreign affairs minister, to introduce new procedures to ensure similar cases were dealt with more compassion.

John Weakliam, country director for Vita in Eritrea, an Irish charity that helped Hagos, believes there may be other children living in Asmara who were fathered by Irish peacekeepers. “God knows how many soldiers fathered children who still await their birth rights,” he said.

“There is a popular perception in Ireland that African women are queuing up to conceive and become a burden on our state. On the contrary, these mothers and their children suffer discrimination at home.”

Neil Nolan, a spokesman for the defence forces, said the military was aware of the case, but was unable to intervene. The DFA refused to comment.

Ends