Rapid immigration presented the legal system with an "extraordinary challenge" and its response to date had undoubtedly contained some mistakes, retired Supreme Court judge Catherine McGuinness has said.
Mrs Justice McGuinness said the Law Reform Commission, of which she is president, has selected immigration as one of the areas it will address in its next programme, with particular focus on family reunification and citizenship.
"We have seen the setting up of changes in the law - some well-advised, some perhaps not well-advised," she told a seminar held yesterday by the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI). "No doubt within this area mistakes have been made . . . and injustices have occurred."
ICI founder Sr Stanislaus Kennedy urged members of the legal profession to follow closely the progress of reforms to immigration legislation, which are due to be brought before this Dáil this term, to ensure they offered justice to migrants.
She said some aspects of current law and policies were unjust and expressed concern that the forthcoming Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill could perpetuate these deficiencies.
"At present, our immigration laws and policies are causing real hardship for families, from bureaucratic barriers keeping family members apart through to difficulties for migrants' children in accessing education," Sr Stanislaus said.
Catherine Cosgrove, ICI senior legal adviser, said that so far this year, more than 60 per cent of the clients who have used the organisation's legal service "were properly documented when they came to us for assistance.
"However, most of them had become undocumented by the time the Department of Justice had processed their applications."
ICI senior solicitor Hilkka Becker said that of the group's active cases, the majority concerned family reunification. Other major issues related to the granting of residency rights on the basis of having an Irish citizen child and people who had become undocumented through no fault of their own.
