It is undoubtedly unfortunate for all concerned that the name of Mr. Quaham Babatunde should have come to public attention in Ireland because of the violent circumstances of his death. For that egregious crime, Mr. Babatunde’s friends and family deserve justice, and anybody found guilty of his murder should face the fullest rigours of the law.
However, it should not have taken his death to bring Mr. Babatunde to public attention. The simple fact is that Mr. Babatunde should be alive today because he should never have been on that Dublin street to begin with. He should never have been in Ireland to begin with. That he was here is a result of an Irish immigration policy that cannot be described as anything other than a public policy catastrophe.
Here are the relevant things that we now know about Mr. Babatunde: That he was once an asylum seeker in Italy. That he had been scheduled to be deported from Italy. That he had faced charges of rape in Italy. That Italy had decided that he should be returned to Nigeria.
How is it then, that Mr. Babatunde was in receipt of taxpayer funded accommodation from the Irish State, and that he was at large in our capital city on the night of his death? Our own country’s laws, and the laws of the EU, suggest that he should never have been here at all.
There is irony here of course: Mr. Babatunde would have claimed that he was in Ireland because his life was in danger in Nigeria, or that at minimum he was at risk of serious harm.
Had the Irish state simply said “No you are not, go home”, then Mr. Babatunde may well still have been alive today.
How many other Mr. Babatundes are there, in the Irish asylum system?
How many other people who have faced serious criminal charges in other EU countries, or faced deportation from other EU countries?
We do not know the answers to those questions, but they can reasonably be inferred: You either believe that Mr. Babatunde was an isolated case, or you do not. I do not.
I do not believe that he is an isolated case for the simple reason that his case is so straightforward: Within hours of his having been named in public as the victim of this weekend’s murder, hundreds of amateur sleuths online had uncovered what the entire security apparatus of the state apparently missed entirely: That he – or at least someone of the same name and almost identical appearance – had faced rape charges in Italy. One journalist was able to confirm that story within 12 hours of it first appearing on the internet. A simple google revealed most of the story, and a few well-placed phonecalls from a journalist confirmed it.
When people talk about the “vetting” of immigrants into this country, they are usually met with something approaching disdain from both our politicians, and the kind of journalist who likes to mingle with politicians and thus hosts prime time television and radio shows: What do you mean by unvetted, they like to ask.
Well: This. It is readily apparent that Mr. Babatunde was allowed into the country without anybody even googling him.
Of course, there is another possibility, which is that the state knew about the rape charges and the Italian deportation order and allowed him in anyway. That possibility cannot be excluded, but it would never be admitted. The only defence that could possibly be offered in the alternate universe where a Minister was asked about this by the taxpayer-funded national broadcaster is that Mr. Babatunde somehow slipped through the net.
It is always incompetence, never veniality. At least, in public.
Of course, there is a reason that questions about Mr. Babatunde will not be asked, and that reason is the circumstances of his death, which will helpfully provide media outlets and politicians alike all the reason they need to stay away from the topic on the grounds that to do otherwise would be distasteful, or involve speaking ill of the dead. The manner in which the information has come to light will make the information sufficiently irrelevant for the issue to be formally avoided in public discourse, sadly.
There are further questions that it is fair to ask, but some of those cannot be asked right now because of the risk of prejudicing a trial.
One that can be asked, though, is this: Without wishing to appear ungenerous, how does somebody living in refugee accommodation on a financial allowance of €39 per week end up partying in central Dublin on a Saturday night – an activity that many Irish people earning substantially more might limit on financial grounds?
What kind of disagreement causes somebody to get stabbed? That is another question we can ask. In time we might even get an answer.
In the meantime, Mr. Babatunde’s family and friends have to say goodbye to him, forever. It is his tragedy, and perhaps ours, that he was – to refer back to a quote in another context from an Irish politician last week – in the wrong country, at the wrong time.