Garda staff at immigration bureau to treble

Illegal immigration will be further restricted with the Government's decision to almost treble the number of gardaí working with the Garda National Immigration Bureau.

The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, announced the move yesterday after the Government approved the expansion of the two-year-old office. Currently, 121 members staff the bureau. This will be increased by 200 Garda recruits, Mr O'Donoghue said.

The extra staff will step up immigration checks along the Border and will increase the detection rate for people wanted for deportation. Trafficking will also be clamped down on.

"Any diminution in the State's determination to enforce its immigration laws against a background of increasing vigilance in other European countries serves merely to encourage traffickers to attribute a 'most favoured destination status' to Ireland," Mr O'Donoghue said.

A team of officers will be established to liaise with immigration authorities in other countries and visit certain airports throughout Europe to advise staff on the documentation needed to come to Ireland.

The Minister also said considerable progress had been made in speeding up the processing of asylum applications by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal.

He said that since July, 2001, the number of asylum cases scheduled, processed and completed had significantly exceeded intake.

Less than 3,000 applications were on hand in the entire asylum system for more than six months, he said. The Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner had more than doubled its number of interviews last year, compared with 2000.

The Refugee Applications Tribunal had scheduled 170 per cent more hearings in 2001, compared with the previous year, he said.