Ireland must avoid treating immigrant workers poorly and allow them to integrate, Mr Bruce Morrison, a former US congressman, has warned.
Mr Morrison, who played a key role in allocating green cards or "Morrison visas" to 48,000 undocumented Irish immigrants in the US during the 1990s, said there was still time for Ireland to avoid the mistake of other European countries of denying it is a country of immigration.
He met Ministers in Dublin last week to discuss immigration and asylum issues. The Government is planning to overhaul immigration procedures and transfer responsibility to a new service.
Mr Morrison, who is vice-chairman of a US public affairs and communications company, GPC International, said immigration was a positive development, and the biggest challenge for Irish politicians was "to get the policies right and to get the social consensus right".
He said he was a "deep sceptic" about guest-worker programmes that allow only temporary work rights.
Immigrant workers in Ireland enter with work permits renewable after one year. Professionals in areas where there are skills shortages get work visas renewable after two years. These workers can apply for citizenship after five years.
Almost 20,000 work permits and work visas were issued last year. It is estimated that 200,000 workers are needed to meet the demands of the labour market over the next five years. This year 9,050 work permits and 896 work visas were issued.
Mr Morrison advocated allowing immigrant workers to remain permanently once they met certain qualifying conditions. This could complement temporary work schemes for people hired for specific short-term projects.
"You want to face up to the fact that if Ireland wants to grow faster than it can with its own population and takes people in, they shouldn't be seen as factors of production that you toss out when they are obsolete," he said.
He cautioned against Ireland repeating the "classic European mistake" of denying it is a country of immigration, citing Germany as a country which had "got it wrong" and treated its guest-workers poorly, largely because of the lack of an integration ethic. Its substantial Turkish communities were not fully accepted or accepting, he said.
Mr Morrison said managing immigration meant hard steps had to be taken, including deportations. He said the US, which currently has 12 million undocumented immigrants, had made mistakes which have led to fresh calls for another amnesty.
He said Ireland's asylum process must be fast and fair, with strong disincentives for frivolous or fraudulent claims and high levels of staff expertise.
"Otherwise your system would be awash with insubstantial or inappropriate claims, and the higher percentage of those, the more difficult it is for deserving people to be taken seriously."
The number of staff processing asylum applications has been significantly increased in recent years.
The Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner is hoping to achieve its six-month processing target within a year, based on staffing resources and current levels of arrivals. The current processing time ranges between four months and several years.
"There is progress, but it's way short of what it should be in terms of the speed at which judgments are made and the level of training and expertise of people dealing with asylum-seekers," Mr Morrison said.