People found trafficking illegal immigrants into the State could face a 10-year prison sentence or an unlimited fine under a controversial new Act which was found constitutional by the Supreme Court yesterday.
The new sanction is one of a wide range of measures in the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act, which gives gardai new powers to seize and forfeit vehicles used by traffickers. The new law also opens the way for the State to begin finger-printing asylum-seekers.
The finger-printing provisions and the sanctions against traffickers were not the two parts of the legislation which the President, Mrs McAleese, had referred to the Supreme Court.
The sections under the court's scrutiny involved extending the grounds for gardai to detain unsuccessful asylum-seekers for up to eight weeks before deportation, and drastically curtailing the time limit for such people to apply for judicial review of a decision to deport them. The President signed the legislation into law yesterday.
Refugee and human rights groups as well as members of the Opposition last night expressed disappointment at the court ruling ratifying provisions of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act, which they said discriminated against failed asylum-seekers.
The Irish Refugee Council condemned the law's reduction to 14 days of the time failed asylum-seekers have to apply for judicial reviews of deportation orders, as Irish citizens have six months to start such an action.
"This amounts to an unacceptable, unjustified and discriminatory restriction," said the council's chief executive, Mr Peter O'Mahony. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties said the court's reasoning in upholding the law's constitutionality was "minimalist and unduly non-interventionist as regards the rights of failed asylum-seekers".
The Labour Party's justice spokesman, Mr Brendan Howlin, said he was disappointed by the "manifestly discriminatory" provisions in the Act.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice said the Minister welcomed the Supreme Court judgment and was pleased to have been in the position to reform the immigration laws to reflect modern-day reality.
Detained asylum-seekers are likely to be held in Mountjoy Prison before deportation. Sixty people have been deported since last November.