More than 10 Romanian immigrants a week are being smuggled out of France to the Wexford port of Rosslare, according to gardai.
During the last month 42 illegal Romanian immigrants have been detained in Rosslare, according to Supt Jim Kehoe of Wexford. Since the beginning of the year, 75 Romanians have been detained and housed locally in Co Wexford, waiting for their applications for political asylum to be processed.
Many of those detained at immigration by gardai speak no English. But almost all use the words "asyle politique" or its English equivalent, political asylum.
Last week two of the 22 Romanians found in two separate lorries from Cherbourg were deported. One of them - a teenage boy - had made the trip the previous week and been sent back on the ferry, where he was arrested by French police and sent to a remand home near Paris. He escaped, French police said, and set off for Ireland again.
The ferries and their thousands of container lorries have become the only routes for illegal immigrants, according to the Irish Refugee Council director, Ms Nadette Foley. European airlines can be fined for every illegal passenger they carry. So airline staff have become de facto immigration officials and it has become more difficult to travel by air illegally.
The Refugee Act contains sanctions for those who organise the traffic in illegal immigrants, but the Act has not been implemented. And the Government has not included this measure in the latest proposals for dealing with refugees.
While gardai suspect a level of illicit organisation is behind the trafficking of people into Ross lare, they have limited resources and facilities to deal with it.
"Rosslare is a disaster," said one Garda source. Container lorries are searched, but the gardai do not have even a portacabin to house anyone taken off a lorry while transport to Wexford Garda Station is being organised. Last week 11 people were crammed into one of the grey huts on the truck concourse after being found in a container.
Supt Keogh is concerned that the comparatively large number of Romanians housed in Wexford may increase racial tension.
"Our job as police is to allow them in because their applications have to be processed. But you can have problems when there is an influx of people into a small rural town. And we don't know anything about them.
"They could be anybody, but because they are asylum seekers we are not allowed to contact their governments to get information."
Some illegal Romanians have arrived with Dublin phone numbers, Supt Keogh says. Others arrive with no contacts, and usually no papers other than their Romanian documents. Two weeks ago, three Romanians arrived as foot passengers with Spanish identity cards.
By letter, telephone and word of mouth, the system of stowing away on a container and seeking political asylum has been circulated.
Few old men, children or women make the journey. It is for fit young men, who hope to bring their families to join them if they are successful.
"Most who arrive here have no money," Garda Michael Hyland, the immigration official at Rosslare, says. "Maybe one in 10 will have £40. When we ask them why they come they usually say that they heard Ireland was a very good country and the people were very nice."
Gardai suspect that at least one Romanian based in Dublin has been in liaison with those making the journey. One man has been seen in Rosslare a number of times when illegal immigrants have been detained.
The Romanian Embassy in Dublin believes there may be up to 1,500 Romanians living illegally in Ireland. "We believe there are some organised structures, based in France or other European countries, for trafficking people."
The Romanian Government has agreed protocols with 10 European countries, including Ireland, for the deportation of Romanians who arrive illegally.
However, the Irish Refugee Council believes the trafficking of people in container lorries is a result of the shutters coming down on asylum seekers in Europe.
"If people are desperate, for whatever reason, then they are willing to do desperate things," council director Ms Nadette Foley says. "It is common in the UK to find people either dead or dying in container trucks."
A West African man was found dead in a lorry that arrived in Ireland this year, she says, the first such death in Ireland.
In Amsterdam a non-governmental organisation has studied the number and type of deaths of people trying to get from east to west. According to United for Intercultural Action (UIA), more than 1,000 people have died in Europe since 1993 trying to evade border controls.
The causes have included suffocation in container lorries, shootings by border guards, and drownings.
Four Romanians were found suffocated in Felixstowe in Britain in 1994. Last February an unidentified man was found frozen to death on the undercarriage of a plane that had landed at Heathrow airport.
Ms Saskia Daru of UIA says: "Even if Europe tries really hard it will never be capable of effectively shutting its borders. The only thing that this will do is force people to take enormous risks, and more and more people will die."