The route for Romania's gypsy immigrants to Ireland begins for most in the small village of Huedin, high in the rolling hills of northern Transylvania near the town of Cluj. The success of 37 Romanians who have got into Ireland by claiming to be from a choir that does not actually exist is an exotic variation on a much larger move to the State now regarded by illegal migrants as the destination of choice.

"Germany used to be the place to go, but they tightened the rules. Now Ireland is the best," says Romanian journalist Horia Tabacu, who has studied the Huedin operation. "Ireland has the best package of support and the word is that authorities are supposed to be easier than most in letting people stay."

Those turning up to Huedin, a centre of several gypsy clans who operate the immigration pipeline, are treated much like tourists. They are offered a package deal, which includes a three-stage overland journey, for about $1000 in US currency. Huedin does not accept Romania's sliding currency, the lei. Nor credit cards. But group discounts are considered, and can make the price as low as $400.

The first stage of this journey sees the emigrants taken north through eastern Europe to the "jumping off point" for entry to the European Union, Poland's border with Germany. Long and badly patrolled, this is the gateway of choice for illegal immigrants.

Once inside Germany, they are met by bus or truck and, with no internal frontiers to negotiate, are whisked across to the French coast, usually to the port of Cherbourg. From there they travel by ferry or sometimes by fishing boat to Ireland.

Once they have arrived, they apply for political asylum. They then have a choice. They can either wait until the probable rejection of their application - a period of several months in which their social security benefits are several times the Romanian average wage - or they can simply vanish.

"They have their people waiting for them in Ireland," said Tabacu. "They can find them work, or get them into Britain."

Huedin is not the only centre of illegal emigration in Romania, and gypsies are not the only emigrants, but it is known as the best organised.

Typically, gypsies move west in small groups. Last month 25 were intercepted aboard a bus in Italy, heading for Ireland. In many cases, one family member will go West, work for a few years, then return to the family, when another brother or sister will take their place. In a country where the average wage is £72 per month, even the lowest-paid jobs in the West will bring them a fortune. The fruits of this trade are easy to spot in Huedin - there are half a dozen so-called Gypsy Palaces, villas that are a cross between Walt Disney and the Gingerbread House with their sculpted white concrete walls and roofs festooned with clusters of sharp turrets covered in tin plating.

The trade began after the 1989 Christmas revolution, with Germany the favourite destination. But Germany has since filled-up, absorbing 250,000 Bosnian refugees.

It now has a bilateral returns treaty with Romania, under which illegal migrants are taken to internment centres, then flown home. For many migrants, there is hardly time to pay back the cost of being smuggled in before they are shipped home.

Of course, gypsies are not the only emigrants from Romania - they are simply the ones Europe does not want. Since the revolution, 320,000 Romanians have emigrated legally, the same as the number who have left war-ravaged Serbia.

They include some of the most talented people from a country that combines a promising education system with a lousy economy. Architects, designers, scientists, computer whiz-kids, theatre directors, models, doctors: all move West to countries hungry for their skills.

Two students who worked as my translators in the aftermath of the revolution are gone, too. One is a psychiatrist for a London hospital, another earns £120,000 teaching whiz kids on the trading floor of a Wall Street bank how to use their computers. Both say the only skills to be rewarded in Romania are those of buying and selling, with the professional class kept in penury.

Perhaps the saddest part of this immigration game is that the West, in effect, siphons off the best talent of the East. The rich countries grow richer, while the poor are drained of the talent they need to climb out of poverty.

The gypsies say they should be allowed stay in Ireland because back in Romania they are persecuted. This is a thorny issue. They are certainly discriminated against; in fact gypsies and Romanians distrust each other in roughly equal measure.

Romanians complain that the gypsies run an alternative society - paying no taxes, marrying below the age of consent, spurning schools and of course, stealing.

While it is true that a large minority of gypsies carry out some of Romania's nastiest crimes, it is also true that the majority of the 1.4 million gypsies do not.

More complex too is the relationship between the 25 or so clans into which they are organised. In 1992 dozens of gypsies fled for their lives when mobs set fire to their homes in several villages outside Bucharest. In fact, the mobs were composed of both non-gypsies and gypsies from two clans, all of whom turned against one clan, named the Bear Trainers, whom they accused of violence.

In general, nomadic clans fare badly, while others integrate more easily. And while plenty of gypsies have made fortunes through immigration and illegal work abroad, the majority live in great poverty.

Meeting a group of gypsies labourers outside a village in Transylvania, I asked them what they wanted to get from the government. Their answer was simple: shoes.

Immigration is becoming the hot topic in Europe. Already fears about existing immigration have seen victories for nationalist parties in both Austria and Switzerland, nations that feel themselves on the "front line" of the clamouring masses from the East.

More immigrants are already battering at the gates. France and Spain are deporting record numbers of Africans who have made it across the Mediterranean, many of whom have very well-founded fears of persecution if they return home. And Italy's navy continues to play cat-and-mouse with speedboats crammed with Albanian immigrants in the narrow waters of the Adriatic.

Ireland will probably tighten its immigration laws to choke off the immigration - and will certainly want to hear choirs sing a few notes before stamping their passports.

But immigration may well be the rock on which the present bold plans for enlarging the European Union founder. The trumpets are already being polished for next month's Helsinki summit, in which the EU leaders are expected to announce that talks on entry will begin with almost every single European country, rich or poor.

Barring some staggering increase in living standards, this will mean a tide of immigration, with even a life on the dole in the West paying many times more than a proper job in the East. Of course, the West may decide that accepting all these extra people and paying their welfare cheques is simply the price to be paid for being good Europeans.

But the betting is against it.