A crackdown on foreign nationals abusing State benefits has revealed that about 1,200 people have defrauded the Exchequer of social welfare payments, writes Conor Lally.
In the old Irish Press building on Dublin's Burgh Quay people of all colours and creeds queue with armfuls of paperwork in what is now the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB).
They are waiting to register as asylum seekers, apply for visa extensions, query deportation orders and conduct the other business of immigrants the world over.
Behind the marble counters and sheets of shiny glass, Department of Justice officials listen to the many queries and give whatever assistance they can.
They also check details and take clients' photographs and fingerprints, which are now being used to verify identity. The workers' fingers dance over the keyboards of their computers as every detail gleaned from those on the other side of the counter is entered on Government databases.
The officials may smile politely to those they encounter but, along with Garda members of GNIB, they represent the State's frontline against foreign nationals intent on abusing the system.
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell last week published the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill. Under its provisions, non-EU nationals who commit a range of offences will face summary deportation. The mooted legislation also provides for all non-EU nationals to carry biometric identity cards, known as residence permits.
Mr McDowell's detractors have said the Minister would be better served devising ways to assist the integration of the new ethnic minorities into Irish society. While many would see merit in this argument, clear evidence has emerged that some elements of our immigration system need to be reviewed.
Since last year the Irish and British authorities have been conducting Operation Gull. It has been aimed at identifying those circumventing the relaxed immigration controls in the common travel area between the two nations.
About 1,200 people interviewed under Operation Gull while entering the State from the UK have been found to have defrauded the Irish Exchequer of social welfare payments. A wide variety of abuses has been identified.
One of the most common and lucrative abuses has involved foreign national single parent families availing of a range of benefits here, often running to €3,000 per month, and then simply leaving the country without informing the authorities. The benefits continue to be paid to their bank accounts and can been accessed from abroad via ATMs.
In other cases when persons entering the State have been checked on the UK immigration database they were found to be claiming benefits in both jurisdictions.
Some people claiming rent allowance of up to €1,300 had left the State only to sublet the property to others.
The findings of Operation Gull have shocked even the most experienced investigators from both jurisdictions. Serious systemic deficiencies have emerged which the Government simply cannot ignore.
Some sources say the biometric identity cards proposed under Mr McDowell's mooted Bill will make the abuses detected much more difficult to perpetrate. The same sources say the threat of summary deportation might deter others.
Operation Gull involves GNIB, officials from the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the UK immigration authorities. Officials from all three agencies form one Dublin-based investigation team.
They conduct operations at ports and airports in the Republic and Northern Ireland and on the Border.
When officials from the Republic travel to the North they have no powers and act in a consultancy basis only. The same is true of the UK officials based here.
The Irish authorities have access to all of the British government's immigration databases, and vice versa. Those claiming benefits in both countries have been easily detected. And because the Irish and British authorities are now storing fingerprint records, those travelling, or claiming benefits, under assumed identities have also been identified.
"It has to be said that the majority of people we have stopped have been found to be completely law abiding," said one source. "But others have been claiming very large sums every month that they were not entitled to because they were not living here. It's impossible to know how much this has cost over the years. But word of mouth spreads and for every person we catch their case will act as a deterrent."