THE case of Sine Halfpenny, the Canadian teacher of Gaelic who was refused a visa by the Home Office for a job on Mull, has been taken up by the media in her home country.

In what a campaigner for Halfpenny has called “a diplomatic disaster”, the Home Office’s decision has been roundly criticised across the Atlantic where the teacher has had to move from her home province of Nova Scotia to Manitoba to find work.

Halfpenny applied for a vacant post for a teacher of Gaelic at Bunessan Primary School on Mull, the fact that she is qualified to teach in Scotland and to teach Gaelic.

Despite the fact that she was the only applicant, the Home Office denied her a visa saying there was no shortage of teachers.

Michael Russell MSP and local councillors have taken up her case, but there has been no change of heart by the Home Office even since new Home Secretary Sajid Javid said there would be a change to the “hostile environment” attitude to immigrants fostered by his two predecessors.

The Star newspaper in Halifax, Nova Scotia – a province with a large population descended from Scots – told its readers of Halfpenny’s plight at the hands of the Home Office.

“It’s frustrating because you’ve got kids with no teacher,” she told the paper, “the kids are going into year two and they still don’t have a teacher.”

Halfpenny has now moved to northern Manitoba, where she now teaches English at Garden Hill First Nation High School, but is still keen on the Mull job.

She said: “It’s not fair to keep a teacher that can be there and is willing to settle down in their area away.”

She praised Russell and the councillors who have supported her: “They’ve been champions for me. I wish the process was easier on them so that we can just get to work. They’re good people and hopefully things will work out for the school.”

The latest row follows the cases of the Australian Brain family and their son Lachlan – widely reported in Australia – and the treatment of the Zieldorfs sent back to Calgary, Canada, from their successful Laggan Stores business.

Ariel Killick, an Australian-born descendant of Scots forced to emigrate in the Clearances, is a Gaelic artist based in Scotland who has campaigned for people of the Scottish diaspora to be allowed to come to Scotland and stay here.

She said: “The injustice of this latest UK Home Office decision rightly demands vigorous action and objection from all across Scotland.

“This will not go unnoticed in the diaspora. It is a diplomatic disaster forced on Scotland against its will by an administration that is not fit to govern it.

“This latest UK Home Office decision is nothing less than an ongoing shameless squandering of the massively rich resource of entrepreneurship, energy and passion the Scottish diaspora can bring to Scotland. This latest decision not only trashes what should be beautiful legacies of the two Homecoming years, it trashes the legitimate hopes and dreams of our young diaspora to come home.”