People found trafficking illegal immigrants into the State will face a 10-year prison sentence or an unlimited fine under the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Bill, 1999, which will soon become law.
The Bill gives gardai powers to seize and forfeit vehicles used by traffickers to transport illegal immigrants or asylum-seekers.
Ships, boats and aircraft are among the vehicles which can be seized under the Bill, which was signed yesterday by the President following the Supreme Court ruling that it was constitutional. It will become law once the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, signs a commencement order.
The Bill's powers to deal with traffickers were not part of the sections referred to the Supreme Court by the President.
Mr O'Donoghue has stressed that the Bill is aimed at traffickers, not immigrants. He told the Dail in November that 85 per cent of asylum applications were made not at the ports but inland. "It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that applicants are being smuggled across our borders in an organised, clandestine way by unscrupulous people," he said.
The Bill has been criticised by Amnesty International and the Irish Refugee Council because it fails to draw a distinction between professional traffickers and genuine people helping asylum-seekers to enter the State to escape persecution on humanitarian grounds.
The groups have said the Bill would punish someone like Oskar Schindler, who saved 1,200 Jews from death in Nazi camps.
Until the end of last month, 6,100 people had sought asylum - or refugee status - this year. This compares with 7,724 in 1999. Twenty-four people have been granted refugee status to the end of last month.
The full text of the Supreme Court judgment is available on the Irish Times website at www.ireland.com