The refusal to allow a Japanese visitor into the State this week "appears to have been a well-founded decision and one arrived at in a reasonable fashion," the Dail was told.

The Minister for Social Community and Family Affairs, Mr Ahern, on behalf of the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, said it had been suggested that the woman was visiting Ireland to celebrate Bloomsday. "I understand that, while this claim was first mentioned at an advanced stage in the incident, the Garda immigration office concluded that her primary purpose was to enter Ireland to enable her to enter the UK more easily."

The Minister was replying to Mr Proinsias De Rossa (Lab) who raised the matter on the adjournment. "Putting it quite bluntly, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform should hang his head in shame at the treatment meted out this week to a Japanese visitor, Ms Tomoko Tsuchiya, who was treated more like a terrorist than the tourist she was," Mr De Rossa said.

He said that she had arrived from Tokyo via Amsterdam on Monday to visit her friend, Mr Albert Rose. Although living in Hampstead, he was Irish and they had both planned the trip for a year to be in Ireland for Bloomsday.

"When Tomoko arrived at Dublin Airport, she was refused entry, apparently because she had previously been turned down for a visa to visit Albert in the UK. Immigration claimed she was using Ireland as a back-door to get into the UK, although there was no evidence to back this up and much to suggest otherwise.

"She was held incommunicado for several hours before Albert found out where she was. He was allowed to speak to her on the phone but only had time to ask her how she was before the call was terminated. He tried to get her released into his care on Monday but no one would talk to him in Immigration," Mr De Rossa said.

Mr De Rossa said that Mr Rose had contacted his office on Tuesday morning. "My office made up to 17 attempts to contact Immigration at Dublin Airport through numbers supplied by the Aliens Office and Aer Rianta, without getting a reply over a period of about three hours."

Mr Ahern said that the immigration officer, who in common with most immigration officers was a member of the Garda, was satisfied that it was Ms Tsuchiya's intention to avail of the absence of immigration control from Ireland to the UK to return there, thereby breaching the common travel area and subverting the UK controls.

"The Minister has informed me that she admitted to an immigration officer that she intended going to the UK. On this basis, the immigration officer refused her leave to land on the grounds of intention to travel to the UK in circumstances where she would not have been admitted had she arrived there directly and also on grounds of her intention to deceive regarding the purpose of the visit."

Mr Ahern said that maintenance of the common travel area was a matter of important public policy as the ease of movement it gave to Irish and UK nationals was essential to interaction between the two jurisdictions. "If it is to survive, however, it follows that persons not entitled to avail of it, do not use it to evade immigration controls generally."