Immigrants should be refused entry if they have serious criminal records, and deported if they are jailed here for five years or more, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has said.
Calling for a full and open debate on immigration, Mr Kenny said Ireland had the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of other countries and to benefit hugely from those who have come to live in Ireland.
"We live in a country that exported our people, not by the boatload, or by the planeload, but by the generation," he told a one-day meeting of the Fine Gael parliamentary party and new general election candidates.
"We live in a country where hundreds of thousands of families lived for the postal order that put food on the table and clothes on their backs thanks to a father and often his sons slaving on the building sites of London and New York and San Francisco.
"So it's safe to say that we live in a country where you'd have to have a very small mind, a very short memory and a very hard heart not to welcome the stranger who is trying to make a better life, a more hopeful life for themselves and their families," he said.
However, he said, Irish people and immigrants have rights and responsibilities to ensure that proper integration takes place over coming years.
"I believe that immigration and multiculturalism can be good for Ireland but the current system is not being managed well. We need a system that is good for the Irish and good for the immigrants."
Calling for a minister of State for immigrant affairs, with cross-departmental powers, he said: "As of now, we have a system that is not serving the interests of either."
The Government's handling of immigration so far had been weak and fragmented, with a myriad of Government departments and agencies involved, but with nobody in sole control.
Immigrants had the right to live free of discrimination, but they also "have the responsibility to integrate into our community, comply with our laws and respect our cultural traditions.
"I do not want to see a situation developing in which our immigrant population live separate lives. We have a responsibility to facilitate and encourage this integration," Mr Kenny said.
Employers who underpay immigrant workers and try to discriminate against Irish ones should face serious fines, while immigrants from outside the EU should be allowed in only if they had specially required skills.
On Irish laws, Mr Kenny pointed out that the Rules of the Road had not been rewritten for a decade, and were still not available in foreign languages despite the number of foreigners involved in car crashes.
"Immigration must be managed in a way that keeps Ireland safe. We must ensure that Irish laws are understood by and adhered to by immigrants.
"We also need to send a strong message that people who want to come to this country to commit serious crime are not welcome and will be dealt with severely.
"[ We should] introduce a much more rigorous screening of those applying to come here from outside the EU to establish if they have criminal records.
"We should refuse entry to those who have been involved in serious criminal activity.
"In addition, I believe that those who are convicted of serious offences and sentenced to five or more years' imprisonment by the Irish courts should be deported automatically after they have served their sentences," said Mr Kenny.
