{"id":598900,"date":"2026-08-20T06:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T06:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/598900\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T06:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T06:44:14","slug":"protest-calls-for-palestinian-students-to-get-irish-visas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/598900\/","title":{"rendered":"Protest calls for Palestinian students to get Irish visas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around 200 people have attended a protest against the Government denying visas for a group of Palestinian students hoping to take up scholarships at third level institutions this academic year.<\/p>\n

The protest was held outside the Department of Justice at St Stephen’s Green in Dublin city centre today.<\/p>\n

The Labour Party and Social Democrats have now called on Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan to carry out an urgent review of the refusals.<\/p>\n

At least 31 of 59 Palestinian students who applied for study visas after securing fully or partially-funded scholarships by Irish third level institutions this year were refused permission to enter the country, according to figures released last week by the Universities of Sanctuary initiative.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Universities of Sanctuary initiative works to develop practices for welcoming asylum seekers or refugees into third level institutions, including Trinity College, University College Dublin (UCD), University of Limerick (UL) and the National College of Art and Design (NCAD).<\/p>\n

Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik described the development as shocking and said reasons provided for the refusals have been “far too dismissive of the conditions and circumstances” for which the students find themselves in.<\/p>\n

\"Around
\nLabour Party leader Ivana Bacik at the protest<\/p>\n

She said reasons given for refusal included insufficient bank statements and no demonstrated evidence that they will return to Gaza when they complete their studies.<\/p>\n

She said: “These are students from Gaza who have demonstrated academic excellence, who have been awarded scholarships from universities and colleges across the country, fully funded in most cases by those universities and colleges, and yet have now been refused at the last minute by the Department of Justice.<\/p>\n

“This is a shocking development, and the minister needs to conduct an urgent review.<\/p>\n

“The numbers here today and the many more people who have contacted me show the depth of feeling – people feel passionately that we need to stand in solidarity with students from Gaza who want to come and study here.”<\/p>\n

In a statement, the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration said each visa application is decided on its own merit, regardless of nationality.<\/p>\n

It said Palestinian nationals must have a valid Irish visa before they seek to enter the State and that 41 student visas have been granted to Palestinian nationals so far in 2026.<\/p>\n

“In common with the position for all non-EU nationals, entry of Palestinian nationals is undertaken through the existing legal immigration pathways available,” the department added.<\/p>\n

\"Around
\nSe\u00e1n Radcliffe said the Palestinian students deserved to be here<\/p>\n

The protest was organised by the Trinity College Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement and the NCAD students’ union.<\/p>\n

Se\u00e1n Radcliffe, Chair of Trinity BDS said the Palestinian students deserve to in Ireland and that they had met all of the requirements needed to receive approval.<\/p>\n

He said: “I’m calling Minister for Justice to grant visas to all fully funded Gaza students with places in our universities.<\/p>\n

“They have met all the requirements, they do everything we ask of them.<\/p>\n

“They need to be evacuated soon because the term starts in a few weeks, and they deserve to be here.”<\/p>\n

Social Democrats Senator Patricia Stephenson said Gazan students are “being denied the chance of escaping a warzone and the opportunity of higher education”.<\/p>\n

“This situation has now moved beyond frustrating and into the realm of the indefensible,” she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around 200 people have attended a protest against the Government denying visas for a group of Palestinian students…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-598900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}