The Government is planning to establish a new "one-stop shop" service which will process all asylum applications, work permits and visas as part of a major overhaul of the State's immigration system, writes Carl O'Brien, Social Affairs Correspondent.
Plans for a new Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (Inis) are expected to be approved at tomorrow's Cabinet meeting.
If approved, the office would operate from the Department of Justice from April this year.
The new service would also include a new Immigrant Integration Unit to co-ordinate social measures to help with the acceptance of lawful immigrants into Irish economic and cultural life.
Government officials believe the new system will bring about a better managed overall immigration policy and lead to faster processing of asylum applications, visas, work permits and citizenship applications.
The service will also respond quickly to labour needs by monitoring skills shortages in the economy. While there have been improvements in the processing of asylum applications, there are still substantial backlogs in areas of immigration such as the authorisation of family reunification requests for refugees or skilled migrant workers.
At present three Government Departments are responsible for various aspects of the immigration system. These include the Department of Justice (general immigration, visa processing, security), Foreign Affairs (visa processing), Enterprise, Trade and Employment (labour immigration and work permits).
The Garda National Immigration Bureau is also responsible for border controls, registration of non-nationals and deportation, anti-trafficking measures and investigations. Most of these functions will be drawn together under the new agency.
It is understood that plans for the service have been agreed between the Department of Justice and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Minister for Justice Michael McDowell is due to bring plans for the new service to Cabinet for approval tomorrow.
The measures are likely to be welcomed by support groups for migrant workers and non-nationals. However, these bodies have expressed concern over policy anomalies which they say have resulted in discrimination against immigrants.
Mr Philip Watt, of the National Consultative Committee of Racism and Interculturalism, said various discriminatory policies, such as the lack of welfare benefits for migrant workers and red tape for non-nationals resident here on a long-term basis, also needed to be addressed.
He said failure to deal with these issues could lead to the emergence of "second-class" residents, such as Turkish guest workers in Germany.