Allowing asylum-seekers to work, or introducing an asylum-seeker amnesty, could have a "very negative" impact on the level of asylum applications here, the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, told a Methodist organisation last year, newly-released correspondence has revealed.
In his response last October to an earlier letter from the Belfast-based Methodist Church in Ireland's council on social responsibility, Mr Ahern also warned against "overloading" the asylum process with large numbers of new applicants who come to Ireland under the misguided expectation that they will be granted residency rights.
This would be "totally contrary" to the State's international obligations under the Geneva Convention and could "completely negate the major investment in effort, time and resources which has gone into bringing our overall strategy to its current status", he states.
The council's June 2005 letter to Mr Ahern, which was copied to the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, had expressed concern about the "insensitive" treatment by some State agencies in the implementation of deportation orders.
It also said that similar understanding should be shown to people coming to Irish shores as had been shown to undocumented Irish immigrants in the USA, where representations had been made on their behalf.
However, in his reply to Rev Dr Frederick Munce, general secretary of the Methodist council, Mr Ahern said it was believed that allowing asylum-seekers to work or granting an amnesty "would greatly undermine the considerable progress which has been made in relation to asylum-processing arising from the Government's asylum strategy".
The correspondence has been released to The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act.