Some 10,000 asylum applicants are likely to be issued with letters of intent to deport them, according to information released to the Dáil yesterday.
The information was contained in additional material circulated with the official reply of the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell when he answered questions in the Dáil yesterday.
He told Labour's justice spokesman, Mr Joe Costello, that between 1996 and January 2003, 10,584 people were granted permission to remain in the State on the basis of an Irish-born child.
The Supreme Court ruled in January that there was no automatic residency right for the non-Irish parents of Irish children. Between 2000 and January 2003, some 40 people were refused permission to remain in the State. As of February this year, there were 11,493 such cases "on hand".
Mr McDowell said that 996 applicants had an alternative legal basis to remain in the State either through a valid work permit, business permission to remain or full refugee status.
He said that "each of the 11,000 people whose cases are on hand is to be the subject of an individual examination unless somebody decides otherwise. That is the view which the Government has taken. It was decided that there would be no mass deportations nor would there be any mass amnesty."
However the additional information to the Minister's reply stated that "depending on the circumstances of the individual cases it is likely that the majority of the remaining applicants will be issued with letters under the terms of section 3(3) of the Immigration Act 1999, as amended, informing them of the Minister's intention to deport."
The Minister said he would continue to monitor the situation "including the question as to whether constitutional and legislative change may be necessary".
