Minister for Justice Michael McDowell will bring plans to Government in the autumn which will see Garda immigration officers sharing information with their counterparts across the EU.
The plans will pave the way for Ireland to join the new EU Immigration Liaison Network (ILN), part of which will include the posting of EU immigration officers in "third countries", ie outside the EU.
According to a statement from the Department of Justice, officers will "establish and maintain contacts with the authorities of the host country with a view to contributing to the prevention and combating of illegal immigration, the return of illegal immigrants and the management of legal migration".
They will collect information on:
the flow of illegal immigrants originating in or passing through the host countries;
the routes followed by those flows of illegal immigrants in order to reach the EU; the ways in which counterfeit or false documents are produced.
A spokesman said there are no plans at present to post members of the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) outside the EU. He said there were immigration officers from other EU states posted abroad and, under the new ILN, the GNIB will benefit from the intelligence.
Mr McDowell said the plan would "assist the State in fighting illegal immigration.
"Even closer contact of Irish immigration officials with their European counterparts should result in greater information sharing which will help in combating illegal immigration."
He would be bringing this measure before the Oireachtas in the autumn, he added.
The spokesman stressed the posting of immigration officers abroad was at the discretion of the individual state.
