Refugee women were reluctant to seek timely antenatal care because of a fear of being deported, Dr Mary Henry (Ind) told the House.
It was all too easy for people in Britain to see the advantage of coming here to give birth, and this had led to serious problems for mothers and babies. One baby had been born a few days ago on a boat approaching Dun Laoghaire.
Maternity hospitals had pointed out that many refugee women left it very late to seek antenatal care because of deportation worries. It must be made clear that this would not happen. They tended to wait until the 26th or 28th week of pregnancy, compared with the average of 10 to 12 weeks for Irish women.
Dr Henry said the Department of Justice had known for many years of a sharp increase in the number of children born here to mothers seeking political asylum or refugee status. Children born in this State were automatically citizens. Indeed, children born on this island had an automatic right to citizenship, and this was reiterated in the Belfast Agreement.
Initiating the debate on the immigration situation, the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, said he did not propose to sit around bemoaning the fact that the inflow of asylum-seekers continued and pointing to the fact that, in terms of staff and resources, the situation had been totally transformed.
"In fact, I am acknowledging here and now that we need to do much more and that we need more staff and more resources. Not only do I acknowledge this, I am doing something about it with the support of ministerial colleagues and led by the Taoiseach."
He said it must be a basic concern of any minister whose job it is to deal with the problem of public order to ensure that the evils of racism and the violence which had been associated with racism throughout the world were not allowed to take root here.
On wider immigration policy, he said we must face realities and if we were to apply a policy which was significantly more flexible then that applying in the rest of the EU there was very little doubt that, over a period, we would be left to deal with an immigration inflow with which we simply could not cope.