The Labour Party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, has accused the Government of trying to "ram through" legislation before the summer recess which "has very serious negative implications for the human rights of asylum-seekers".
He told the Dail yesterday that the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, had proposed a 16-page amendment at the committee stage of the Immigration Bill through which he was trying to amend the 1996 Refugee Act. "This amendment amounts to what is, in effect, an entirely new Bill," he said.
The Fine Gael justice spokesman, Mr Jim Higgins, said the Government seemed determined to "bulldoze the Bill through by tonight no matter how much it tramples on democratic procedures".
The Government said the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality and Women's Rights had until 9 p.m. yesterday to consider around 75 Government and Opposition amendments to the Immigration Bill. The legislation will come back to the Dail for its final stages today before going to the Seanad tomorrow.
In the committee yesterday, Labour's Ms Jan O'Sullivan said it was not acceptable that a complex Bill in "a life and death area" was being rushed through in this way, and that the Minister had circulated his lengthy amendment only a week ago. She said the Government's guillotine motion meant that strong representations by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Irish Refugee Council and Amnesty International would not now be reflected in the way the Bill was debated.
She said the Government was anxious to get the legislation through so it could start deporting people. While accepting the need for a law to allow deportation, she stressed there was an equal need to "ensure precautions which are fair and in accordance with human rights law". The UNHCR has expressed concern about clauses in the Bill citing reasons of national security or public order to prevent an asylum-seeker entering the asylum process.