One of the country's leading business figures has called for tighter control of immigration policy to prevent the system's exploitation by criminal gangs from Eastern Europe and Africa. Arthur Beesley, Senior Business Correspondent, reports.

Xavier McAuliffe, the Spectra Photo founder, whose personal wealth is estimated at €60 million, said that unchecked immigration has the potential to create serious social problems in Ireland in the future.

"There's nothing wrong with opening the labour market. But when things go wrong, who's going to look after it? . . . None of our planning is [ that] far ahead. We have to plan for the future. Where's the 20-year plan on all these things and where's the 10-year plan on all these things?"

Mr McAuliffe said that such problems could be contained with "proper policing", but said that the Irish policing system was unprepared for such challenges.

Criminal elements with "mafioso connections" were at work in Ireland thanks to their manipulation of the immigration system. He cited as an example a supervisor in one of his companies who was kidnapped for 24 hours in reprisal for a reprimand on one of his staff.

He said the kidnappers were associates of the employee, an immigrant worker. According to Mr McAuliffe, no complaint was made to the Garda because the supervisor in question was afraid of further reprisals.

He learned of the incident himself only some weeks later and believes the staff member in question is no longer with his company. "It was a person that was working with us, on the floor. He reprimanded them. He was taken away and kept for 24 hours. That would be unheard of in Irish society in the past . . . It's a frightening thing when you hear that happening."

The Irish immigration system was open to exploitation by criminal gangs from eastern Europe and Africa, he said. Pointing to the spate of violence last year in deprived areas of France and to earlier instances of tension with immigrants in Germany, he said the arrival of large numbers of immigrant workers could lead to social tension in Ireland in the event of an economic downturn.

A hotelier and a property developer, McAuliffe said he was not a racist and said that he employs "fantastic" Polish workers in his own companies.