No `open-door policy on immigration'

The Government has to do what it thinks is right and is ensuring there is no open-door immigration policy, the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue told the Dail.

He was winding up the lengthy debate on the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Bill which passed all stages in the Dail late last night by 64 votes to 42.

Mr O'Donoghue said there was no doubt that people were being trafficked between Cherbourg and Rosslare and that had been a fact for some time. He had been in France recently and said the French authorities had up to 10,000 asylum applications every month this year. People were being trafficked to Ireland but fortunately, he said, in recent times they had been coming through as foot passengers.

Words could not describe the revulsion and horror he felt for those involved in trafficking the immigrants found dead in Dover and he was "deeply saddened".

While people opposed some elements of the Bill it was not meant to undermine the dignity of anyone, he said. He respected the opinions of those who criticised him but he had to do what the Government thought was right. No individual had the right to abuse the asylum process and people were only found to be illegal after all the fair procedures had been gone through.

Labour's deputy leader, Mr Brendan Howlin, told the Dail that he had warned of such a tragedy as the Dover one happening. He had spoken to those who had to deal with severely dehydrated people falling out of the back of lorries in Rosslare.

Mr Joe Higgins (SP, Dublin West) said the Minister and the Government should not take their lead from "politicians whose ideas are from the caves". He said they should use the best practice and philosophy on preserving human rights, human dignity, and the right of people to have those rights vindicated in the same way as citizens of Ireland.

Mr Jim Higgins, Fine Gael's justice spokesman, condemned the Minister for "destroying" a fundamentally good Bill to end the exploitation of human misery by his determination to "graft on provisions which have changed the thrust of the Bill". He said that "not alone is the Minister determined to remove the constitutional rights of people by reducing the time for judicial review from three months as it remains for Irish citizens to 14 days, he is now determined to change the goalposts again by changing the requirements for judicial review".

The Mayo TD said "we are talking about the fundamental human rights of people like those who were unfortunate enough to be on the ferry from Zeebrugge to Dover or those who have come into member states by various methods to seek humanitarian protection. We are not prepared to allow them the same constitutional protection as our own citizens."