The Department of Justice expects to finalise tomorrow an agreement with Nigeria aimed at speeding up deportations of failed asylum-seekers, despite a threatened legal action.
The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr O'Donoghue, will travel to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, to sign the readmission agreement.
A Nigerian group, the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), has said it will seek to injunct the Nigerian government from signing the pact.
However, a spokesman for the Department of Justice said yesterday the signing of the agreement was due to proceed. "We haven't been advised by the Nigerian government that it is not going ahead," he said.
Mr O'Donoghue will stop off in Nigeria to finalise the pact on his way to a United Nations world conference against racism, which opens in Durban, South Africa, next Friday.
Several refugee lobby groups attending the Durban conference have criticised the readmission agreement. They say they will lobby international groups in Durban to oppose such bilateral agreements.
The groups, including the Association of Refugees and Asylum-Seekers in Ireland, claim the agreement would "deindividualise the asylum-process" and lead to all Nigerian applicants for refugee status being treated as a group.
The Union of Nigerian Citizens Resident in Ireland and Residents Against Racism protested last week against the agreement outside the Department of Justice and the Nigerian embassy in Dublin.
Once signed, the agreement will take effect within months. It has to be put before the Nigerian and Irish parliaments. It is likely to go before the select committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights.
Nigerians are the largest single nationality seeking asylum, or refugee status, in Ireland, accounting for about a third of the 4,769 applicants for the first half of this year.
Asylum-seekers are people who apply to be recognised as refugees on the grounds that they are fleeing persecution. The Nigerian agreement would be the third such pact signed by Ireland. Similar agreements are in place with Romania and Poland.
The Department of Justice has said the agreement will set procedures for deporting people and replace current ad-hoc arrangements with the Nigerian authorities.
Mr O'Donoghue will travel from Nigeria to Durban, where he is due to address the UN world conference on racism next Saturday.
Some 200 states will attend the conference, co-hosted by the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Mrs Mary Robinson, which runs from August 31st to September 7th.