Twelve young Romanian men who arrived at Rosslare Harbour at the weekend refused to sleep in the same accommodation as 33 gypsies who were smuggled in a separate container on the same ship.
One of the men who spoke English indicated to the gardai that the group did not wish to be accommodated in the same place as the gypsies.
The entire group was brought to Rathangan Parish Hall in south Wexford but the 12 men slept upstairs in the community centre while the gypsies slept downstairs.
The following day the young single Romanians were transferred to hospitals in Waterford.
A young Romanian law student who arrived in Wexford three weeks ago and who was working as a voluntary interpreter for the gardai said he felt badly about the recent arrival of the gypsies.
The 47 members of the Roma gypsy community landed in Rosslare a week ago followed by a second group of 35 people from the same village this weekend.
"I feel really sorry for what is happening now," said the Romanian man who did not wish to be named.
"They will spoil it for everyone. There is a big difference between the ordinary Romanians who are coming here and the gypsies. There is cultural difference and historical difference. Gypsies are a big problem in Romania. People in Romania do not speak to them," he claimed.
Commenting on the conditions in which the gypsy families and their children were travelling from Cherbourg, he said: "That travelling is too dangerous for a child. It is too dangerous to bring children in these conditions."
He made his remarks while sitting in a pub in Rathangan with gardai. Three gypsies, two men and a woman who strolled into the pub from the community centre, were refused a drink by the barmaid.
The young man, who hoped to continue his law studies in Ireland, said all the gypsies who arrived in Wexford had left a small village called Huedin in western Romania.
"It is a very small place and I think it must be empty now. The first gypsies that came telephoned the others. They said Ireland is a paradise, come here."
Another nine asylum-seekers were discovered on a container truck aboard the European Pathfinder from Cherbourg yesterday morning.
They were taken to Wexford Garda station to have their applications for political asylum processed and were expected to be accommodated in Wexford guesthouses last night.
Four Romanian men also arrived in the harbour on the Isle of Inisfree from Pembroke yesterday.
One was sent back straight away because he did not look for political asylum and, in a reversal of the current trend, three Romanian men who have been living in Wexford for a number of weeks presented themselves at the Rosslare terminal building yesterday asking to be deported. When no Garda officers arrived in response to their request, two bought ferry tickets to France. A Garda spokesman said that over the past few months a small number of Romanian refugees had asked to be sent home.
They were facilitated and given passage on the same ship on which they had arrived, he said.
"A few of them have come to us and said they did not wish to stay here. We sent them back to France. The shipping company which brought them into the country illegally in the first place has an obligation to bring them back," the garda said.