The vast majority of people trying to enter the country illegally by crossing the Border are not asylum seekers but workers who end up in the mainly unskilled, poorly paid black economy, according to the Garda immigration Border control unit based in Dundalk.
Provisional figures for the first half of this year indicate that just six of the 477 people refused leave to remain in the country were asylum seekers.
Although some of the remaining 471 people may have been trying to visit relatives already in the Republic, it is believed the rest were travelling to work in the black economy.
They were all detained by gardaí in the Border unit between January and July this year, after they had boarded either trains or buses that originated in the North. Some people have been detained after gardaí stopped taxis travelling from the North.
There were gardaí working in immigration control before the unit was established and, for all of 2004, they refused leave to remain in the Republic to 366 people. Estimates for this year are 1,000.
It is a dedicated immigration unit, the only one along the entire Border. Every mode of public transport crossing the Border is being stopped and checked.
The unit was established last October by Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy and all members are uniformed and wear high-visibility fluorescent jackets.
"Dundalk is on the main thoroughfare between Belfast and Dublin and a lot of people use Belfast airport and the road to get to Dublin. It is the best route. People from in excess of 30 countries have been detected by the unit," said Garda Supt Pat Magee.
Since the EU enlargement, the Garda unit has found Russians, Ukrainians and people from other countries of the former Russian states using false passports that state they are from Latvia or Estonia or other countries now in the EU. If someone succeeds in getting into the country and has a false passport, they can get a PPS number and claim to be working legally.
The Garda unit works with the Department of Social and Family Affairs and it has also come across a small number of people living and working in the North who claim welfare in the Republic.
Some people have been found with airline tickets that show they arrived in Heathrow airport 24 hours before they were stopped on the train from Belfast to Dublin. They would have had a visa from their home country to allow them visit relatives in the UK but this was not their true intention.
Another 150 people were detained who would have had an existing application made to remain in Ireland as either an asylum seeker or the parent of an Irish-born child.
However, Garda Sgt Gerry Connor, head of the Dundalk unit, said anyone who makes an application for asylum is immediately put into the system and taken by gardaí to Dublin to make the application at the offices of the Refugee Commissioner.
"Very few people now are seeking asylum. However, if they even intimate that their situation is political or they are fleeing or afraid, we can claim that this is an asylum seeker and we bring them to Dublin so they can make the application," he said.
Those found to have been trying to enter the country illegally are immediately returned to the UK, mainly by ferry, and the authorities there are alerted.