Cead mile failte, how are you! A black London tourist is detained at Dun Laoghaire port for five hours because her passport is out of date. A group of Chinese students with visas spend a night in custody before being deported - because their passports show a visa application they made to the UK was rejected. A Bosnian tourist is detained for six hours over two days at Dublin Airport, refused access to an interpreter, but finally allowed to stay.

These are just a few of numerous cases of students, business people and tourists receiving lengthy interrogations and threats of deportation - some of which are carried out - at points of entry to the State.

A growing number of visitors are discovering that Ireland's welcoming image is not all its cracked up to be, with Irish eyes not so much smiling but glowering with suspicion.

In one sense at least, however, those who make it to our shores, despite having to undergo such treatment, are the lucky ones. For many international tourists, especially from the former USSR and Asia, visiting Ireland is an unattainable goal.

Tourism operators say it has become more difficult for many students and tourists to gain visas or entry to the State since stricter border controls were introduced in response to the recent increase in the number of refugees arriving.

Jackie Joyce, manager of Marketing English in Ireland, a representative group of study tourism companies, says that in the first four months of the year at least £1.5 million of business was lost as a result of strict visa application procedures.

The visa rejection rate, she says, was running as high as 90 per cent earlier this year.

"We have to accept some of that business may have been problematic but a huge number of those rejections were not really valid. They were very much based on bureaucratic reasons and some members were very angry that we were haemorrhaging business to Britain as a result."

Maeve O'Riordan of Specialised Travel Services, which caters for high-spending tourists, says Ireland is missing the boat on getting a foothold in emerging tourism markets such as Russia. "There is a huge enthusiasm among Russians to come here but they're not willing to wait four or five weeks for their application to go through and then have to reapply when it is rejected."

She says most Russian tourists are automatically refused on their first application and the success rate on the second is only about 40 per cent.

"As for places like the Ukraine and Moldova, other areas in the former Soviet block, it's virtually 100 per cent refusal," she says. The Departments of Justice and Foreign Affairs, which process visa applications, blame the delays on an increase in the number of applications to an estimated 40,000 this year.

Following consultation with industry representatives, the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, announced this week the appointment of 15 additional visa officers, bringing to 35 the total number of personnel in the area.

Guidelines on visa applications have also been introduced, to give the foreign student industry a better idea of what documentation and financial commitment is expected from applicants.

Ms Joyce admits that "huge advances" have been made by the Department. However, she says problems remain with overzealous immigration officers and rejection rates for applicants are still running at between 40 and 60 per cent.

Among the problem countries are Poland, where au pairs wishing to come to Ireland are unable to gain entry, and Croatia, where agents are "sending people to Jamaica and Nepal and all sorts of other places but can't get anyone into Ireland".

The Department disputes such high rejection rates, claiming that over 90 per cent of visa applications are accepted.

Other tour operators, however, share the same experience of lengthy delays and routine application rejections.

Brian Murray, director of a group tourism company, Aspects of Ireland, says the visa problem is "retarding our efforts to develop markets in places like Russia".

He says studies show that Russian tourists spend almost three times as much as other tourists and that "because they can't get in here they're going to the UK instead where they haven't had any problem with overstays".

Like others, he believes the problem runs deeper than staffing shortages in the Department. "We have an innate racism which also has to be faced up to. There's a suspicion that everyone carrying a Russian passport is in the mafia."

OTHER operators, who don't wish to be named, complain of encountering "malicious" immigration officers who have deported tourists for spurious reasons. A number of operators describe their embarrassment at having to negotiate entry for groups of tourists at ports and airports.

As for individual travellers from countries such as China or Russia, they say their chances of entry are almost nil.

Senator Brendan Ryan says the growing number of cases of tourists being poorly treated at points of entry to the State highlights the need for better training of immigration officials.

"If it keeps going like this we will eventually eliminate our image as Ireland of the welcomes," he says.

We will also eliminate an opportunity to boost the student tourism industry, worth an estimated £300 million a year, as well as inward tourism in general, says Ms Joyce.

"The problem with visas is a result of our own success in attracting people to Ireland," she says. "We have broken into markets which are now problematic for us. But the Department of Justice is genuinely attempting to improve the situation. We're delighted with that and hope it continues."