Files on more than 20 cases of trafficking in immigrants are with the Director of Public Prosecutions awaiting a decision on whether to prosecute.
None, however, involve incidents nearly as serious as the weekend tragedy in Wexford.
Chief Supt Martin Donnellan, who heads the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB), said most cases forwarded to the DPP fell into three categories, all covered by the Immigration (Trafficking) Act of 1999.
Some involve asylum-seekers brought illegally into the Republic by taxi from Northern Ireland, while some foreign nationals legally resident in Ireland are alleged to have accompanied other people's children into the country on flights using family passports. "There are no photographs and no fingerprints for a child under 15. There's just a name on a passport so it's easier to pass them off as someone else," Chief Supt Donnellan explained. Some of the children brought in to the country in this way have had to be placed in care because no true blood relatives have been found.
Other suspected trafficking cases involve legal residents of Ireland driving undocumented immigrants into Rosslare on the car ferry. It is hard to discern here whether the responsibility lies with the driver or the ferry company, although the latter will be legally required to determine the validity of the travel documents of all passengers under the new Immigration (Carriers Liability) Bill being drawn up.
Even the taxi journey cases, which involve exchange of money and therefore financial gain, are not clear-cut.
"You have to prove that the driver got more than the normal fare," said Chief Supt Donnellan.
The GNIB successfully prosecuted its first - and so far only - case in May this year when a Russian national was jailed for four months after he admitted being paid £800 to help two of his countrymen and a Moldovan to enter the State illegally by accompanying them through Dublin Airport in the hope that his legal documents would add credibility to their fake passports.
But Chief Supt Donnellan said he had not encountered anything like the Wexford case which he described as "deeply tragic".
Since the bureau was set up in May last year, most of the time of the 70 garda∅ assigned to it has been taken up gathering information on illegals already in the State and acting on deportation orders issued by the Minister for Justice.
Much of the investigative work in the Wexford case will be turned over to Interpol, although officers from the GNIB will travel to mainland Europe to assist. If the joint effort pins down the traffickers who arranged the fatal voyage, the next question will be in which jurisdiction to prosecute them.
"You would have to extradite those responsible to Ireland for trial if you decide to use Irish law. But if the refugees got into the container - say in Zeebrugge - if the trafficking was effected in that port, the prosecutors there may be able to bring a case under Belgian law."
Murder or manslaughter charges would be brought under ordinary criminal law. But a murder prosecution would be fraught with difficulties.
The Labour spokesman on justice, Mr Brendan Howlin, said there must be a full murder inquiry involving the authorities in Ireland, Italy and Belgium.