Palestinian student visas and scholasticide

Sir, – To get a long-study visa to study in Ireland, a student must provide evidence of, among other things, their educational history, their proficiency in English, their funding for the duration of their studies and their commitment to return to their home country. These requirements seem reasonable and fair until they are applied to Gazan students whose houses, schools, banks and universities have been, in most cases, razed to the ground.

Genocide and famine have ravaged Gaza but, despite this, many Gazan students created complete visa applications to study in Ireland commencing last September. Despite their complete applications, and the fact that they had secured scholarships and academic places at Irish universities, many were refused long-study visas. In some cases, the refusal was based on decisions containing what Judge Anthony Barr ruled were “ significant and demonstrable errors on the part of the decision maker”.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin addressed the UN general assembly in September, recognising that the international community has failed Palestine . He spoke of the horrors within Gaza , saying: “Nobody will be able to say that we did not know. Let it not be said that we did not act.” His words recall post-Holocaust speeches made when the United Nations defined and codified genocide as criminal. That genocide is occurring in Gaza is recognised in a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry report authored by Navanethem Pillay, winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

A contributing cause of genocide is “scholasticide”, a term coined in the first decade of this century to describe the deliberate decimation of educational institutions. Scholasticide erases indigenous languages, cultures and identities, creates brain drain and paves the way for the complete and enduring colonisation of a people and/or a territory. The International Commission has pointed to the systematic destruction of the education system as a constitutive aspect of the genocide in Gaza.

Martin’s words to the UN general assembly do not chime with the fact that, under his leadership, long-study visa refusals to Palestinian students rose from 13 per cent in 2025 to 83 per cent in 2026. The 1948 Genocide Convention, to which Ireland is a state party, stresses that countries must “employ all means reasonably available” to prevent genocide. Denying visas to students whose documentation is complete or whose documentation is impossible to complete does not “employ all means reasonably available” to prevent genocide.

In refusing long-study visas to Palestinian students, Martin’s Government breaks faith and consistency both with his own grand UN general assembly speech and with Ireland’s obligations to the Genocide Convention. Ireland’s higher-education community has a moral obligation to ensure that our Government not only speaks against but, crucially, acts to prevent and stop genocide. – Yours, etc, ÚNA KEALY, Lecturer, School of humanities, Southeast Technological University.