The Department of Justice is to recruit an additional 120 staff to deal with immigration-related policies, including processing applications for asylum.
It is understood the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, sanctioned funding of £2 million for the extra staff after yesterday's Cabinet meeting. There are currently 22 staff working in this area within the Department of Justice.
The Government is also expected to decide next week to issue letters to over 2,000 asylum-seekers, saying they are eligible to work, in an attempt to get larger numbers of them into employment as soon as possible.
The requirement for an employer to first obtain a work permit before employing an asylum-seeker is also likely to be removed at Tuesday's Cabinet meeting. Some 2,100 asylum-seekers, who had been in the State for more than 12 months last July, are eligible to work, but just 53 have obtained work permits so far. The low take-up has been blamed largely on the cumbersome procedures for obtaining work permits.
The 120 new staff will be responsible for speeding up applications for asylum as well as implementing recent Government decisions on dispersing asylum-seekers to various locations around the State.
The Minister for Justice has given a commitment that the additional resources and staff will ensure that all decisions on applications for asylum will be given within six months.
Mr O'Donoghue was asked by the Cabinet yesterday to prepare a comprehensive set of proposals on immigration policy. These proposals, to be discussed at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday week, are likely to include the establishment of a new immigration agency.
This would operate in a manner similar to the Courts Services Board and the Prison Authority. The Minister would continue to set policy, but the agency would assume responsibility for all aspects of day-to-day policy on immigration.