The minister for Justice has stressed that there are no plans to house asylum-seekers in detention centres. But he said there is a need for temporary accommodation for them while their applications are processed.
Mr O'Donoghue said last night that he would provide comfortable "conventional" accommodation for asylum-seekers for as long as he could, but he had to cater for contingencies.
"If it should occur, for example, that I run out of conventional accommodation, then I cannot be expected to allow people to sleep in the streets and in those circumstances I would obviously have to ensure that there was a sufficiency of accommodation for them even if that accommodation proved to be unconventional."
Mr O'Donoghue said there were "no plans whatsoever to introduce detention centres here." Asked if the Government intended to house asylum-seekers in reception centres, he said there was "an intention to try and ensure that there would be some temporary accommodation for asylum-seekers while their forms were being processed."
Reception centres, he said, were places where people would temporarily be accommodated while more permanent facilities were being found for them.
"When people criticise the possibility of there being unconventional accommodation, I want them to know this: I am quite willing to listen to any argument which would provide decent, comfortable accommodation for asy lum-seekers in this country."
Mr O'Donoghue was speaking at the announcement of a school education pack on cultural integration produced by Sport Against Racism in Ireland in conjunction with the teaching unions, the INTO and the ASTI.
These organisations are seeking Government funding for the education pack, which is aimed at encouraging multi-cultural understanding and tolerance. They hope to distribute the pack to schools for the start of the new school year next September.
Mr O'Donoghue also took part in a pan-European radio broadcast to celebrate the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Earlier Mr Gay Mitchell, Fine Gael's foreign affairs spokesman, said racism and xenophobia were rampant. "Talk of flotels and detention camps is obnoxious. When such loose talk is accompanied by lethargy in challenging expressions of hatred, regrettably now commonplace in Ireland, Government inaction becomes recklessly endangering," he said.