Ireland's Catholic bishops today directed strong criticism at what they called the Government's "asylum exclusion policies".
In a statement issued to coincide with the eve of World Refugee Day, the church leaders accused the Government of creating "a glass wall of exclusion" around their frontiers.
The Irish Bishops' Committee on Asylum Seekers and Refugees claimed in their 14-page document that "intense contradictions are growing deep in the internal structures of individual European Union states arising from the irreconcilable tension between the desire to limit the inward movement of people and growing thirst for immigrant labour to sustain our economies".
It also said the rights of countries to regulate their frontiers were "in growing tension with the internationally-recognised right of asylum.
"At Irish and EU levels, this essential right is coming under threat from policies designed to restrict so-called irregular migration in general.
"Such a threat is becoming painfully obvious in certain of the policies now being put in place to police our frontiers."
The bishops maintained that many asylum seekers were being effectively prevented from applying for asylum in Ireland by the stationing of Irish immigration officials in an "advisory" capacity at foreign embarkation points and on ships and planes travelling to Ireland and by the threat of legal penalties to carriers which brought in inadequately-documented passengers.
And they added: "There is now a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the state's asylum policy."
The bishops repeated a call for the regularisation of the position of asylum seekers in Ireland, pointing out that since the first time they had made the plea, more than a year ago, the backlog of applications had gone up by nearly 2,000, to 13,400.
They said: "Pre-emptive expulsion, under the threat of carrier sanctions, is an integral component of the European wall of exclusion now being built in our name.
"There are major issues of faith and morality here for our Christian community."
PA