Genuine asylum-seekers should be accommodated and integrated into society and no illegal group should cast shadows over them, Mr Ivor Callely (FF, Dublin North Central) said.

Speaking during the debate on the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Bill, he added: "As a Christian country, we want to extend to them a warm welcome and we want to honour our international and UN obligations.

"We must ensure that genuine asylum-seekers have their applications processed in a fair and efficient manner."

He said he was pleased to have stimulated a national debate when referring to the issue recently.

"My views have not changed," he said. When a person was adjudged to be a genuine asylum-seeker, they should be accommodated and integrated in a caring and compassionate way.

"However, if a person is adjudged not to be genuine, they must accept, after due process, the decision to return them to the country from where they came unless there are humanitarian reasons for them staying."

Ms Olivia Mitchell (FG, Dublin South) referred to a "serious and sinister abuse" which had been reported to her. This was the practice of paying single Irish mothers to register a non-national as the father of their children.

"In one case, I heard of a pregnant girl being approached at a bus-stop in Dublin and being offered £1,000 to accept and declare a non-national as the father of the child."