The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, will sign an agreement with the Nigerian government in two weeks' time that could lead to the repatriation of up to 500 illegal immigrants.
The terms of the agreement were approved by the Government last April and are in line with similar deportation arrangements with Romania, Poland and Bulgaria. Mr O'Donoghue is expected to stop off in Nigeria on his way to an international conference on racism in South Africa at the end of the month.
For the first time in three years, arrangements put in place by the Coalition Government to deal with applications from asylum-seekers are now capable of handling the inflow of people and the backlog has stopped growing.
A Department of Justice spokesman said yesterday it was hoped to begin reducing in the near future the backlog of applications that had built up. The terms of the agreement to be signed with the Nigerian government links co-operation between the two states on immigration matters with the continuation and development of Irish aid to Nigeria. The draft agreement refers to the existing financial help offered through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Ireland Aid for "basic needs and poverty reduction".
And it speaks of "consideration being given to enhancing this programme in such areas as the provision of skills acquisition and training for persons being repatriated to assist with their reintegration".
A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said that £600,000 was being spent in Nigeria this year and that this amount could be expected to increase because of a Government commitment to increase its international aid programme to 0.7 per cent of GNP by 2007. This would mean an increase of overall funding from £260 million to £800 million.
A co-ordinating committee will oversee the new agreement and, where legal immigration is concerned, will examine ways in which increased opportunities for legal access to the Irish labour market can be developed.