Government plans to introduce new legislation on immigration have been attacked by antiracism groups and opposition parties.
According to two anti-deportation groups, Anti-Fascist Action and Mid-West Against Racism, the proposals of the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, would lead to further restrictions on immigration to Ireland and amount to war on poor and defenceless people.
Last month the Government accepted a recommendation from the Inter-Departmental Committee on Immigration, Asylum and Related Issues that an amnesty should not be granted to asylumseekers.
Fine Gael's spokesman on justice, Mr Jim Higgins, yesterday called on the Minister to deal with the refugee issue as a matter of urgency. "If the Government had given the issue the priority it deserved over the past 10 months, and introduced a fair, independent and efficient procedure for dealing with applications, the present chaotic situation would not have arisen", Mr Higgins said.
Mr Brian O'Reilly, a spokesman for Anti-Fascist Action, said that the Minister had displayed "zero tolerance" towards one of the poorest groups of people in Ireland. Racist hysteria had resulted in black people being physically attacked by "thugs" on a daily basis.
"Now civil servants, teachers, landlords, doctors and other professions will be conscripted into the anti-refugee war. On a most basic level, refugees requiring medical treatment will be afraid to attend hospitals. Young children will be victimised and denied an education. The Minister is encouraging the growth of a dangerous climate in which all people who look non-Irish are suspects and all public officials must become informers", Mr O'Reilly said.
According to the Minister, the Government has also accepted that providers of publicly-funded services such as social welfare, health, education, employment training and accommodation should notify his Department of applicants who do not have the appropriate documentation.
Mid-West Against Racism described the Government's proposals as "unfair, irresponsible and immoral". The group claimed that many people fleeing torture or persecution were being denied access to asylum procedures and were being "wrongly told they do not qualify as refugees". They were being sent back to countries where they would not be safe.