The Garda National Immigration Bureau is to be expanded significantly in an attempt to combat trafficking by transnational criminal gangs.
New staff allocations to the bureau, set up last summer, include 25 gardai, three detective sergeants, a detective inspector and a detective superintendent. The increases will bring the number of staff in the bureau, headed by Det Chief Supt Martin Donnellan, to 69.
The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr O'Donoghue, announced yesterday that the Government had secured approval for expansion of the GNIB.
He said the additional resources would "enhance the GNIB's capacity to combat trafficking and its continuing focus on a proactive enforcement of all aspects of immigration legislation, including the deportation process".
Mr O'Donoghue said the State's immigration controls were necessary because many people who entered the State illegally came through normal port and airport routes, often with false papers or under the pretence that they were tourists, students or business visitors.
The bureau has direct responsibility for immigration duties at Dublin Airport and indirect responsibility for more than 200 gardai with immigration duties at other points of entry to the State.
It also carries out deportations and provides a registration service for non-nationals. It has liaison officers in London and Paris.
Last week, the GNIB was responsible for the first successful prosecution of a man for trafficking in illegal immigrants under recent legislation. A former Russian soldier, Dimitry Beliacoff (28), was convicted of helping to bring three illegal immigrants into the State. He was sentenced to four months' imprisonment.