A United Nations watchdog is concerned that travel and certification documents issued by Irish authorities to couples who want to adopt children abroad “lack specificity and can be easily falsified.”

Out-of-hours GP service, SouthDoc, may be forced to cut the number of its treatment centres because of funding pressures and doctor shortages.

The number of non-EEA nationals coming to Ireland to study almost doubled in a recent five-year period.

A new round-the-clock intelligence unit to bolster Ireland’s border security will be a multi-agency body, including specialist gardaí.

Returning Irish migrants whose partner is not a native of the EU could be adversely affected by the reversal of a recent ruling on cohabitation requirements.

There are serious security concerns at Garda headquarters at revelations of a sophisticated people-smuggling operation at Dublin Airport.

Members of the public, and perhaps people facing deportation, are being targeted by a sophisticated telephone scam that extracts money.

The number of people in the country’s shamed direct provision system has increased, despite two damning reports into its failings.

Inis is an architect-led, beautifully redesigned, walk-in condition, detached property at the city end of Cork’s popular Blackrock Road.

A private language school estimated to owe its overseas students up to €500,000 has applied for voluntary liquidation despite proposing, at the time of its shock closure last November, to reopen this week.

Dublin Airport is in talks with justice chiefs over plans to expand automatic e-gate passport and border controls.

Civilian staff are to replace gardaí at border control checkpoints around the country.

The cost of meeting judicial reviews taken by asylum seekers and other legal costs totalled €5.8 million last year — and was paid by the State’s Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS).

Hundreds of foreign students left in limbo by English language school closures are to be offered alternative programmes at major discounts by other providers.

Student representatives say Government plans to enforce standards in English language schools will not be enough to ease the plight of hundreds of overseas students affected by recent college closures.

Some English language schools have abused their status to act as fronts for people seeking work in Ireland, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has warned.

Efforts are being made by government departments to help students affected by the closure of a number private international colleges in Dublin.

Immigrants have been targeted in a phone scam by criminals seeking to make them pay a “fine” of €500.

COMPLEXION PERFECTION

The number of asylum seekers wanting refugee status has fallen to a 15-year low.

FOR the past four years, Halima Usman and her nine-year-old daughter have been dreaming about shutting the door for the last time on their asylum seeker residential housing in north Cork.

IT is not such a long way to Tipperary for any relocating Department of Justice officials moving from Dublin – and, appropriately enough, those relocating to Tipp town are from the Department’s immigration and naturalisation services (INIS.)

THE cost to the state of delivering asylum services is expected to reach €206m for 2008 and less again for last year.

THOUSANDS of immigrants are terrified they could yet lose their eligibility for citizenship after they found themselves unable to renew their residency permits over the past six weeks.

AT least 50 applications for change of residency status by non-EU nationals married to Irish people have been turned down by immigration officials over suspicions that they are “marriages of convenience”.

ON last Tuesday morning, on behalf of a work colleague, I rang the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) to obtain clarification of a letter he had received.

Applications by asylum seekers to live in Ireland have dropped to the lowest level in ten years, the Government said today.

Applications by asylum seekers to live in Ireland have dropped to the lowest level in ten years, the Government said today.

More than 100 married couples face separation after the Government warned non European spouses they have no right to remain in Ireland, it emerged today.

MORE than 150,000 people will apply for Irish visas this year, Justice Minister Michael McDowell claimed yesterday.

More than 150,000 people will apply for Irish visas this year, Justice Minister Michael McDowell claimed today.