The Government is to introduce legislation for the State's first work visa programme for people from non-EU countries as part of a new "two-tiered" immigration system.
The Tanaiste, Ms Harney, and the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, are drawing up an outline plan with a target for next year of 5,000 work visas. Departmental officials met Friday to discuss the proposals, which will be brought before Cabinet in two weeks.
At present the State has only one channel for immigrants, that for asylum-seekers applying for refugee status. Non-EU nationals can work only if employers apply on their behalf for a work permit. The proposed work visa arrangement will be similar to that for Irish people who go abroad to countries such as the US and Australia.
A special implementation committee would be established. It is hoped the necessary legislation will be in place to allow for the first work visas to be issued by next spring.
A spokesman for the Tanaiste said last night the work visa would allow high- and low-skilled immigrants to take up jobs in the State that employers were finding it impossible to fill. Among those to be targeted are software workers in India as well as workers from Central and Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia to meet the various skills needs across the economy.
The jobs agency Forfas and the social partners are to be consulted on the plan which will be intensively promoted abroad.
"We are not out to brain drain third countries of their best and brightest. We want to give non-EU nationals the opportunity to work in the fastest-growing economy in Europe," said the spokesman for the Tanaiste.
The chief economist at Goodbody Stockbrokers, Mr Colin Hunt, predicted yesterday in the Sunday Independent that Ireland would have to gear itself for the arrival of 160,000 immigrants over the next seven years if the labour needs of the Government's £40 billion national plan were to be met.
Mr O'Donoghue said yesterday the idea of legal immigrants coming to this State to work was something he welcomed irrespective of "colour, creed or religion" or what country they came from.
Last night Mr Ivor Callely TD, the chairman of the Eastern Health Board, said in a statement he wanted to clarify his position on asylum-seekers.
Genuine asylum seekers should be accommodated in a compassionate manner and Ireland at a minimum, should honour, its UN obligations. Those adjudged not to be a genuine they must accept that, he added.