Migrants to carry new biometric ID cards

Migrants from outside the EU will be obliged to carry identity cards with biometric information under sweeping reforms to the State immigration laws to be announced later this week.

As well as introducing new identity cards, the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill will streamline the asylum process, introduce changes to the way visas are issued to migrant workers and allow for the introduction of a language test for citizenship applicants.

Non-governmental groups will be watching carefully to see if the new legislation, to be published by Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan this week, meets their demands for a fairer immigration system. The Crosscare Migrant Project says the Bill will provide the Government with the first concrete opportunity to improve family reunification for migrants based in Ireland. In a paper to be published this week, it will say that strong rights to family reunification will be key to developing a successful integration policy.

"The current immigration system is weak and contradictory in this regard as we have outlined in our document and in fact in the recent past the Department of Justice has removed and restricted the right of family reunification to people to such a degree that it is seriously hampering integration," said Crosscare's policy officer, Joe O'Brien.

The group is calling for a right in legislation for family members of Irish citizens to reside in Ireland, regardless of their nationality. It says anomalies in law mean that migrants who become citizens can have their rights to bringing family members into the State undermined.

Government plans to reform the asylum process are likely to be among the most dramatic changes contained in the legislation. Senior Government sources say the current process - which can take months, and sometimes years, to process individual cases - will integrate the asylum and pre-deportation examinations into one single process.

Mr Lenihan is expected to argue that the changes will ensure genuine applicants get protection as soon as possible, while those not entitled to protection will no longer find it an attractive proposition to make bogus claims. The Irish Refugee Council, however, has said that safeguards need to remain in place under the new system.