The Government's plans to detain failed asylum-seekers before deporting them have been sharply criticised by refugee, human rights and church groups.
Father Tony O'Riordan from the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice described the measures as "ethnic cleansing, Irish style," given that the detention and deportations were planned in the absence of a broader and more generous immigration policy.
Father O'Riordan said the initiative announced on Tuesday by the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, was "almost a licence for people prone to racist tendencies". The Irish Refugee Council said detention of failed asylum-seekers was "inherently undesirable" and should only be used with extreme caution and as a last resort. The council said alternatives such as voluntary return programmes could be viable in many cases.
Its chief executive, Mr Peter O'Mahony, said deportation should only be considered after a full and fair asylum process. "The increased use of accelerated procedures and the proposal to limit access to the courts for unsuccessful asylum-seekers are therefore a cause of serious concern," he said.
The director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Mr Donncha O'Connell, said there was a "fundamental imbalance" in the Minister's approach.
"At one end he wishes to intensify the deportation process, while at the same time whittling away the due process rights of those who will now be subjected to an accelerated procedure for processing their applications, with the curtailment of their access to judicial review," he said.
Mr O'Connell said the Minister's fundamentally flawed approach indicated a peculiarly hostile attitude to asylum-seekers. The Irish Commission for Justice and Peace said limited detention of failed asylum-seekers could not be ruled out provided full and transparent procedures were followed.
"We hope it would be used as a last resort and it would be essential to monitor it very, very closely indeed," said spokesman Mr Jerome Connolly.
The Green Party MEP, Ms Patricia McKenna, said the Department of Justice had missed the opportunity to prepare a comprehensive immigration and integration policy and was "once again concentrating on deportation measures which further stigmatise asylum-seekers".
Meanwhile, the appointment of a Department of Justice official, Ms Berenice O'Neill, as Refugee Applications Commissioner, is due to be announced shortly. Ms O'Neill is currently the head of the Directorate for Asylum-Seeker Services (DASS).