The Tanaiste, Ms Harney, denied yesterday there was a crisis between the Government parties over the asylum-seekers and refugees issue. She also told journalists in Shannon she was in favour of giving work permits to refugees.
Pointing out that there were "enormous difficulties" regarding refugees, she said there were settlement difficulties, and the refugees who had arrived to date were placed in particular locations. There had not been an integrated settlement policy, she said, and that was not satisfactory.
In addition to processing the applications much more quickly than had been done in the past, there would have to be a settlement policy that made sense and integrated those granted asylum in this State with the population.
The Tanaiste stressed that illegal immigrants as determined by the authorities would be deported on foot of a deportation order. There were 12,000 refugees in Ireland with over 10 per cent of them genuine asylum-seekers fleeing regimes where their lives could be in danger.
The vast majority were economic refugees coming to Ireland because of the Celtic Tiger. "Clearly we can't have an opendoor immigration policy, but we can give many of them opportunities to work here," she said.
Ms Harney added that the State was granting an unprecedented number of work permits for citizens outside the European economic area, including countries not in the European Union. Since last year the Government had granted 11,000 work permits and it had continued to grant them at an unprecedented rate because of the job shortages in the economy.
The Tanaiste confirmed she was working with the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, in developing an immigration policy where people would be granted immigration visas rather than work permits.
The visa would be granted abroad, and that would entitle a person automatically to come here and to get a job in a particular sector. These visas would be given to skilled and low-skilled workers from central and eastern European countries and Third World countries, as well as India.