Minister for Justice Michael McDowell insisted that he would not discriminate between asylum seekers because of a narrow age gap.
"I will not go down the road of allowing someone who came here at the age of 16, and who spent two years in secondary education, to be treated radically differently to an 18-year-old who is sent back in a matter of weeks through an accelerated process.
"I will not be pushed into making such arbitrary and indefensible discrimination between two categories of asylum seekers."
The Minister was replying to Labour justice spokesman Brendan Howlin who said that out of more than 4,000 young people seeking asylum in the State since 1999, at least 2,000 had been reunited with people claiming to be family members.
"An unpublished report by the HSE, referred to on March 27th by The Irish Times, indicated that hundreds of these children are vulnerable and at risk."
Mr Howlin said it was a cause of concern that youngsters who had established educational and other affiliations to Irish society were deported upon turning 18.
Mr McDowell said the great majority of people classified as children were 16 and 17 when they arrived here.
"In my experience they have travelled here after having arrangements made for them by people traffickers. In general terms, they are of reasonably robust disposition, have travelled long distances to come to Ireland alone and secured passage here by paying substantial sums of money to traffickers.
"I would not be overly romantic about the fact that 16- and 17-year-olds claim asylum here. In my mind, there is no great difference between a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old travelling from Nigeria to Paris to Dublin. In many cases they are roughly comparable."
However, said Mr McDowell, because they were deemed in Ireland to be minors they were dealt with differently in that they were taken under the aegis of the HSE.
"They are clothed and given a different level of accommodation to legally-adult asylum seekers who are accommodated in hostels operated by the RIA [Reception and Integration Agency]."
He said under-18s were educated and well provided for in general terms. "Concerns have been expressed with regard to reuniting them with families, and suggestions were that some 16- or 17-year-old non-national girls have been coerced into lives of crime and put at risk. However, these represent a tiny minority in a flow of people."
Green Party spokesman Ciaran Cuffe said it should be noted that some minors had no homes to return to, that they had fled war zones and that in some cases their parents were slaughtered as they fled.
Mr McDowell replied: "Is there such a remarkable difference between a 17½-year-old and an 18½-year-old who come to Ireland when they come to be considered at the age of 19 as to whether one should go home or one should remain? I do not think there is a difference. I do not see a logical reason for drawing a major distinction between the two categories."
