Truck drivers and freight companies found guilty of illegally carrying asylum-seekers to Ireland are to have their vehicles confiscated and face jail terms of up to five years.
Legislation being drafted by the Department of Justice will, for the first time, also allow boats and aircraft illegally bringing asylum-seekers to the State to be impounded.
The Immigration (Trafficking and Employment) Bill is to be rushed through the Dail when it resumes in the autumn.
The new law will also allow the imposition of fines of up to £10,000 for those convicted of facilitating the illegal transport of immigrants. People who employ illegal immigrants face fines of up to £10,000.
As the influx of Romanian asylum-seekers continues, the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, will today meet representatives of Irish hauliers and shipping companies to enlist their help in stemming the flow.
Government sources yesterday said the Minister would impress upon the hauliers and on the shipping companies the need to tackle the issue before there is "a disaster" involving asylum-seekers in the containers that bring them to Ireland.
"He will impress on the truckers and the shipping companies their moral responsibility in ensuring that people are not allowed to board containers and put their lives at risk. There is a moral responsibility to prevent a human tragedy. "They cannot absolve themselves from this," one Government source said.
However, there was no evidence to suggest that the drivers, their companies or shipping firms had any knowledge that illegal immigrants were using their transport as a means of reaching Ireland.
It emerged yesterday that many of the 45 Romanians who arrived in Rosslare Harbour at the weekend were apparently turned away by the British authorities in Portsmouth last week and had returned to France before making their way to Wexford.
Thirty-two of those who arrived in Rosslare gave names which matched the names given to the British authorities by those who arrived at Portsmouth.
The Irish charge d'affaires in Paris visited the French Foreign Office on Saturday to "express concern on a humanitarian basis" about the lack of enforcement of the law in relation to undocumented foreign nationals around the Cherbourg area, a Government source said. The move was taken because of concerns over the apparent ease with which the asylum-seekers could gain access to containers bound for Ireland.
"It is no secret that a large number of Eastern European nationals have set up shanty towns close to Le Havre and Cherbourg, using them as jumping-off points to get out of France," one Government source said.
Last Sunday some 70 Romanian would-be stowaways, two-thirds of them children, were discovered in Cherbourg waiting to board a ferry to Ireland. Police said they were found in the trailers of articulated trucks which they had boarded in Paris. All had legal residence permits for France.
The Department of Justice estimates that 3,000 asylum-seekers have arrived in the State since the beginning of the year. Contrary to some perceptions, Wexford was not the main point of entry. Before the Dail's summer recess, the Cabinet approved the provision of a further 72 staff to deal with the increase in applications for asylum, bringing the total number to 200.
About 100 immigrants apply for asylum at the Department of Justice in Dublin each week; this is usually their first contact with officials after arriving in the State.
Denying that there was a delay in processing applications, a spokesman for the Department said that this time last year the number of staff was only 20.
The Bill, currently being drafted by the Department, is unprecedented in terms of Irish immigration law but is in line with regulations in other European countries.
The British authorities used similar measures to confiscate a Boeing 737 plane which invoked distress arrangements to land at Heathrow Airport with a large number of Sri Lankan aslyum-seekers on board.