Amendments to the Refugees Act aimed at ironing out abuses in applications for refugee status started being debated in Parliament yesterday.

"The government wants to be generous with those people who are deserving of refugee status but it will be tough with those who do not deserve such status" Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg told the House.

"We need to use our minds as much as our hearts to discuss the issue of illegal migration," he added. Many only appeared to be using their hearts, he said.

Dr Borg said the problem of illegal migration had nothing to do with Malta's EU membership. The problem started well before Malta joined the bloc. In 2002, before Malta had joined the EU, there had been 1,688 arrivals, while in the first year of Malta's EU membership the number had decreased. But EU membership was useful for Malta to tackle this problem.

It was a myth that Malta, or indeed any other country, could ever stop people crossing the Mediterranean northwards in search of a better life. Not even Italy, with its huge resources, had been able to do this.

Dr Borg defended the government's detention policy but pointed out that Malta had the highest rate of granting refugee or humanitarian status to deserving migrants, such as those who had suffered persecution in their countries. People granted refugee status were being immediately released from detention centres. And freedom was also granted to those refugees who had been waiting for an excessively long time (in excess of 18 months) to be granted refugee status.

People were not kept in detention simply because they applied for refugee status, Dr Borg said. The detention policy applied only to those people who landed in Malta illegally.

"We will resist every attempt, whether from the EU, the UN, Amnesty International or anyone else to remove the detention policy" Dr Borg said. For one thing, one had to distinguish between those who came to Malta regularly and those who came here without a permit.

Secondly, Malta was not like other countries which had land frontiers and which let refugees move on to other countries and in some cases even gave them money. Malta was a small, densely populated island which simply could not handle such an influx of people. It could hardly deal with people in detention, let alone if they were allowed their freedom. There would be obvious dangers if they were allowed to roam the streets without shelter or substinence. That the detention policy could also have a deterrent value was also positive.

Dr Borg said he had circulated a draft document on the national immigration policy and it was hoped this would be debated by a specially set up task force, including the government, opposition and NGOs, in the near future. He knew that approval of this national policy would not be easy - for one thing NGOs were against the detention policy - but nonetheless he hoped there would be an all round effort for consensus to be reached.

Many people argued that migrants should immediately be repatriated, but this was far from easy, Dr Borg said. It was not difficult to send back Libyans or Tunisians, once their identity was confirmed, but it was tougher to send people to, say, Somalia, where there was practically no government. And the migrants often hid their identity.

Nonetheless, repatriation could not be only to democratic countries. One could not stop repatriation because a migrant would have violated the law in his country, or that country was not democratic. But protection would continue to be given to migrants who risked suffering unjust persecution or torture if returned to their country.

And, Dr Borg said, the government could not shirk its duty to rescue any migrants who were in distress at sea. After all, it was calculated that at least 600 migrants had perished in the Mediterranean over the past few years.

The minister said it was not true that Malta would next year end up with some 15,000 migrants because of changes to the law of the sea. The AFM, which was Malta's coastguard, only rescued or escorted into Malta those migrants who indicated they wished to come here or were in distress. There was no interference in the case of those sailing near Malta but were going elsewhere and did not need assistance.

Referring to relations between Libya and Malta with regard to illegal migration, Dr Borg said there were no problems on the repatriation of Libyan migrants.

The issue was over non-Libyan migrants who left from Libya. It resulted that most migrants left from two points on the Libyan coast, and, clearly, Libya should shoulder at least part of this responsibility. Contacts were continuing on a readmission agreement and he was confident that an agreement could eventually be reached.

Only two days ago, in Morocco, he had a meeting with a former Libyan prime minister, now a consultant to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi when he again discussed the issue and also pointed out that some people were using this issue to disrupt the friendly relations between the two countries.

Dr Borg pointed out, however, that repatriation was taking place. Were that not the case, Malta would have some 5,000 migrants at present, not the current 1,500.

Turning to the provisions of the Bill, he said the main amendment provided that when an application for refugee or humanitarian status was found to be manifestly unfounded, the migrant concerned could be repatriated immediately. Appeal proceedings could not stop such repatriation.

The minister said examples of unfounded applications in the past included those where the applicants were found to have worked in Libya or other countries (which were not their own) for many years. There were also many cases where the migrant sought refugee status only when he was caught or was about to be sent back.

The Bill also provided that migrants who refused to cooperate with the authorities for purposes of repatriation after their refugee application was refused could be kept in detention even if they would have been in detention for more than 18 months.

The Bill also provided that more than one Refugee Commissioner could be appointed to consider the applications for refugee and humanitarian status.

Dr Borg said Malta could not continue building one detention centre after another. Unfortunately some migrants were now being housed under tents, but it was hoped that through this Bill, there would be fewer migrants in Malta.

The migrants currently in Malta came from 33 countries. Most were from African countries which had no government and with which Malta had no diplomatic relations. A third of the refugees - 500 - came from Sudan.

"If they deserve to, they will stay here but if not they will be sent back to Sudan, whatever the cost" Dr Borg said.

Dr Borg was followed by Gavin Gulia, opposition spokesman on home affairs, whose remarks will be reported tomorrow.