O'Donoghue attends anti-immigration EU talks

Justice Minister John O'Donoghue is to attend a meeting of EU ministers to discuss new ways of preventing illegal immigrants from entering Europe.

The talks will focus on the fight against organised human trafficking into the Union.

One of the suggestions is to overhaul the 50-year-old Geneva Convention on refugees. Another is to draw up a list of safe nations from which asylum application will be automatically ruled out.

The smuggling of illegal immigrants has become the world's fastest-growing criminal industry, with an estimated 500,000 women and children alone entering Europe illegally each year.