It is a by now familiar pattern: the number of asylum-seekers coming to Ireland jumps and the Government panics. New measures are announced, dickeyed-up in PR language and jargon, and then the politicians turn their attention back to more interesting vote-grabbing matters.

Thus it was this week that the Cabinet agreed to new measures which will see an end to cash payments to asylum-seekers, to be replaced by food vouchers and so-called smart card technology. New arrivals are to be dispersed throughout the State, in a manner yet to be revealed.

This is the body language of being seen to do something rather than actually tackling a problem. It's a pale imitation of a coherent policy on asylum, immigration and racism which leaves hapless officials to implement the measures with inadequate resources and no clear leadership from above. The result will be the kind of mess which has already led to asylum-seekers and their young families sleeping out in front of the GPO and in city-centre parks, while others are put up in luxury hotels at a cost to the taxpayer of £100 a person a night.

It's an expensive debacle, one that the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, concedes will cost at least £50 million this year alone. But the level of panic in official circles is clear from the fact that instead of shadowing moves in Britain, as Ireland traditionally does in the area of immigration, the Government appears intent on introducing the voucher system before the British authorities do so next April.

Mr O'Donoghue once again reaffirmed his commitment to humanitarian principles when announcing the Cabinet decisions this week, yet only the week before he introduced the fingerprinting of asylum-seekers, a treatment normally reserved for criminals.

Doubted, blamed, abused, and now stigmatised and criminalised they may be, yet asylum-seekers continue to come to Ireland in ever-increasing numbers. About 1,000 people are now arriving into Dublin every month. As anyone who has driven past the Department's refugee applications centre on Lower Mount Street recently can witness, the system is near breaking point, with long queues stretching out the door every day.

Here are the huddled masses of the new world poor - African women in slippers, lean, tense eastern European men smoking cigarettes, gypsy children playing hide-and-seek, all roaming the globe in search of a better life. The shutters have come down almost everywhere else, but Lower Mount Street on a cold autumn day still seems an unlikely Nirvana.

Who are these people, and why do they come to Ireland? About half of the arrivals so far this year came from two just countries, Nigeria and Romania. Neither country has a perfect human rights record, yet few would rank them among the worst countries in which to live. Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine and Bulgaria could be classified similarly, but they also have provided significant numbers of asylum-seekers.

Most of the Romanian applicants are gypsies, who also account for the majority of the 345 applications from Poland, the third-largest source of asylum applications this year.

The disproportionate numbers from these countries can be explained by two factors; word of mouth and/or organised trafficking networks. For the large Nigerian community in Britain, Ireland is only a short flight or boat trip away; indeed, immigration officials regularly come across arrivals whose children speak with flat London accents. Traffickers are believed to be operating in the midst of the Roma community; they charge an initial transportation fee of several hundred pounds, then demand a cut of the social welfare payments while the asylum-seekers are here in Ireland.

THE main reason for Ireland's growing popularity lies in the relative generosity of our welfare system and the lack of restrictions on asylum-seekers compared to other European states. In Germany, for example, asylum-seekers are allocated £180 a month compared to the basic Irish welfare payment of £288. However, only £33 a month of this is guaranteed to be paid in cash.

The rest comes in the form of vouchers, food packets, cash or smart-card allocations; the form of payment varies from region to region, and even within individual regions and cities. This amount is subject to various deductions; if, for example, the asylum-seeker is living in a hostel, £24 a month is deducted for heating.

If the German authorities thought they could save money by introducing the voucher system, the results have been disappointing. "The government is spending vast amounts of money on refugees, but it's businessmen, not the refugees themselves, who are profiting," says Mr Georg Classen of the Berlin refugee organisation, Pro Asyl.

Mr Classen has calculated that it costs his government £2,200 a month to keep a family with three children in a one-roomed flat in a Red Cross hostel, when it would cost only £920 if the family were aided directly.

He says vouchers are unwieldy and cumbersome to administer. "One problem is that only some shops, often the more expensive ones, will accept them."

Smart cards are more flexible, but they require special reading machines that are not found in many shops.

Germany has been pulling down the shutters on asylum-seekers for several years. Anyone who arrived after May 1997 is prohibited from working; those who came before that date may work, but only if there is no other German or EU citizen or foreign with a residence permit who wants the job. "The result is that in areas like Berlin which have high unemployment no asylum-seekers can get a work permit," says Mr Classen.

Freedom of movement is severely curtailed. Asylum-seekers arriving in Germany are farmed out to regional distribution centres, where they spend up to three months waiting for a decision. If their application takes longer, they are moved to a new destination, and are prohibited from moving outside this area.

Even moving outside their home area can result in their arrest and the imposition of a fine. A 41-year-old Bulgarian mother recently spent 55 days in prison after she was unable to pay a £170 fine imposed when she travelled illegally from Berlin to Dresden. Her four-year-old child was placed in a home, and the two were only reunited when a left-wing politician paid the outstanding fine.

Nothing in Ireland compares to this level of severity - yet. Talk of dispersing asylum-seekers to other health board areas remained just that until this week, but, with an accommodation crisis in Dublin, the alarm bells have finally started ringing. Hotels, hostels, B & Bs and even luxury hotel beds are all full, and even the emergency accommodation used to house the Kosovan refugees is still occupied.

The proposal to give asylum-seekers vouchers rather than cash marks a significant departure from the principle of equal treatment under social welfare regulations. It was unveiled in the same week the Government proudly announced the new Equality Authority, set up to tackle discrimination in all walks of life.

"In practice, vouchers stigmatise asylum-seekers and do not permit engagement in activities central to community life," says Dr Colin Harvey, lecturer in law at Queen's University, Belfast. "Dispersal runs the risk of isolating them in communities without adequate support. These policies violate key provisions of international refugee and human rights law."

But with everyone else in Europe doing it, the Government attitude is clearly: why shouldn't we?