Calls for asylum-seekers to be allowed work have led to a potentially embarrassing conflict between the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, and the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O'Donnell.
Rejecting the call, Mr O'Donoghue said Ireland already attracted a disproportionate number of asylum-seekers because of what he called the generous regime applied to them here.
However, Ms O'Donnell has backed the campaign to allow asylum-seekers to work while their applications to stay are being processed. The campaign was launched in Dublin last Thursday with the support of more than 100 organisations, including the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed and Trocaire.
On Friday, Ms O'Donnell said asylum-seekers waiting to have their cases heard for more than six months should be allowed to take up employment. "The fact that asylum-seekers are prohibited from working means that many of them tend to be labelled as scroungers," she said.
A spokesman for Mr O'Donoghue said yesterday that his statement on the matter - which was also issued on Friday - was Government policy. He denied it was embarrassing for the Minister that Ms O'Donnell had expressed a directly opposing view.
A Department of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman said Ms O'Donnell was away and could not be contacted for comment.
In his statement on Friday, Mr O'Donoghue had said the Refugee Act 1996 - which some of those now advocating the right to work wanted implemented immediately - provided that asylum applicants could not seek or enter employment.
"It must also be recognised that the reason Ireland has attracted a disproportionate number of asylum-seekers in recent times, bearing in mind our size and geographical location, is the generous regime that applies to asylum-seekers here relative to that in other countries, combined with the absence up to recently of adequate resources to process claims," he said.
"Giving a right to work would simply create another `pull' factor which would put further pressure on the asylum-processing system and continue to delay recognition for genuine refugees in need of protection."
Mr O'Donoghue said it was not the normal practice of his Department to permit a person who had entered the State on a visa as a tourist or a student to remain here to take up employment.
He was convinced it would be highly undesirable to bring about a situation in which entering the State illegally and claiming asylum was, in effect, rewarded relative to entering in the regular way as a student or a tourist.
He said it must be accepted that, without in any way prejudging the claim of any individual, the majority of asylum-seekers would not be found to come within the definition in the UN Convention relating to the status of refugees. Nor would most be in circumstances which would merit the granting of leave to remain here for other reasons.
"These people will be asked to leave the State. Our greatest service to those who will be recognised as refugees is to ensure that their claims are decided speedily and that our regulations do not serve to attract large numbers of bogus applicants to the detriment of genuine cases."
It was only since the beginning of May that processing of claims had reached the level necessary to deal with new applications and reduce the existing backlog, the Minister said.
He intended that persons now entering the asylum process would have their claims determined within six months where the claim went to the appeal authority, and much earlier where it was granted in the first instance.
The Minister also condemned "in the strongest possible terms" reported incidents of racially-motivated attacks on asylum-seekers.
