Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat yesterday presented an action plan on immigration and said that, if Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi was not prepared to adopt it, he should put it to a referendum.

Speaking in Parliament at the start of a two-sitting debate on illegal immigration, Dr Muscat called for tougher action by Malta. The government, he said, should establish the number of migrants Malta could host in a suitable and sustainable manner. And if the international community did not act and the number of arrivals continued to exceed the numbet the island could handle, Malta should not exclude the suspension of its international obligations.

The debate takes place at a time when the situation in regard to the arrival of illegal immigrants recently took a turn for the worse, with no less than 651 immigrants arriving on three large boats earlier this year, unusually for the wintertime.

The withdrawal of detention centre services by Medecins San Frontiers last week, citing the inhuman conditions under which migrants are kept, has further fuelled the fierce debate over the immigration issue. The government says it is stretched to the limit with the overwhelming number of immigrant arrivals.

At the beginning of his 100-minute speech, Dr Muscat insisted that legality and the national interests were at the core of the issue of illegal immigration. There was no single solution, but there were suggestions which should yield better results than the government's current policies.

The fundamental issue was not race or gender, but the rule of law. If a person obeyed the law he or she should have a right for all protection.

The first point of legality was that one should enter a country legally. The trips which were bringing the migrants to Malta were organised by criminal racketeers, and current systems encouraged illegality.

Progressive governments in Europe had put their national interests at the forefront. The British and Spanish governments had been accused of being too tough but he felt they were being realistic, having drawn red lines in their national interests. In the US, President Barack Obama had also said he was considering a heavy military presence at the US-Mexico borders to fight illegality. This was not racism but putting national interests first.

Dr Muscat said that throughout their history the Maltese had given several proofs of their tolerance. But tolerance succeeded when numbers were within manageable limits and based on rule of law. In the past 10 years, the number of illegal immigrants who had come to Malta totalled 12,131, of whom 13 per cent were women and children.

Last year a record 2,757 had arrived, along with 758 in the first two months of this year.

Some 5,262 migrants were still in Malta, living in detention centres, open centres or in the community.

An illegal immigrant cost the country €18.29 a day. AFM and police personnel's immigration-related duties had cost the Exchequer the sum of €17,700,000 over the last 10 years.

Between 2005 and October last year, EU countries had taken 84 illegal immigrants, or one per cent of total arrivals. Between 2007 and October 2008, the US had taken 173 or four per cent.

Dr Muscat said that, considering these figures and the few that were repatriated, it followed that many had disappeared from the system, either having found ways of leaving the island or still living illegally in Malta. They had disappeared into the framework of EU illegality, and the Maltese government was closing its eyes to abuses. A restricted number of people had made lots of money from development work needed at the detention centres and the erection of the tent city at Ħal Far.

On health, Dr Muscat criticised the media for advocating tolerance and, at the same time, publishing scaremongering stories about HIV-inflicted immigrants. During the past four years there had been 104 illegal immigrants who had tuberculosis and 41 who tested HIV positive. HIV screening was not automatic.

Dr Muscat said that, given the magnitude of the problem, there was a need for an action plan that matched current circumstances, and which respected human dignity in the context of national interest. The problem would not be solved overnight, but this did not mean it could not be better managed.

Listing the points of his action plan, Dr Muscat said the PL was proposing that, rather than grouping all migrants together in detention centres, there should be an admissions policy whereby women were separated from men because in detention one saw a higher possibility of abuse on women and weak people. Of course, one had to make allowances for families.

Furthermore, one should separate those who were likely to qualify for protection and those who obviously did not qualify. One should also separate the migrants according to ethnic groups so as to remove another potential source of conflict, as was currently happening.

Children should not be put in detention.

While Maltese society had to understand the desperation which at least some of the migrants had experienced, the migrants too needed to understand and respect the Maltese way of living and culture. They had to understand that women had a right to wear what they wished, that people queued for what they needed, and they did not relieve themselves in public. They needed to adapt to Maltese norms so as to help the Maltese understand them better. There should therefore be courses on community living for the migrants.

Dr Muscat said another source of conflict was that migrants had nothing to do in detention. Forced labour was not acceptable, but the migrants should be given education and training, including community living, English, and respect for authority.

The Leader of the Opposition said there was no alternative to detention in Malta, and the opposition, therefore, backed the government's detention policy. But detention centres had to be acceptable and reflect humane standards. Current conditions were shameful.

The PL had already called for an admissions policy. It was also underlining the importance of discipline, which was lacking in detention centres. One could not tolerate disrespect for detention officers.

There could be several reasons for this, including sheer numbers, but one could not have a situation where everyone could do what they wished. Security around the detention centres was also important, because the current situation was a farce.

Furthermore, facilities had to be suitable for people and appropriate for the cultures these people came from.

Dr Muscat proposed that an ad hoc parliamentary committee visited detention centres and report its findings to the House after having had full access to soldiers, police and illegal immigrants and all those responsible for the centres. Such reports could become a regular feature. It was not right that such reports were drawn up only for foreign agencies.

He thanked the security services for their work despite being under-resourced and under-paid and, sometimes, even under-trained. The security services needed the tools to be able to work more efficiently.

Dr Muscat said communities where open centres were located should be assisted. Some migrants respected their neighbours and helped in the community. But there had also been problems created not by race, but by illegalities. In Birżebbuġa some migrants had placed stones in the middle of the roads and people's cars had been damaged. In Marsa residents had seen migrants relieve all their natural needs in the middle of the road. In Safi and Kirkop residents locked their doors whenever they heard a helicopter flying low, because migrants would have escaped, and some were found on people's roofs or in their yards.

Despite the growth of the issue, the administrative set-up had not been improved and responsibilities were shared among various ministries and departments, causing confusion and lack of focus. The Home Affairs Ministry did not even have an immigration department. The opposition felt there should be a person with executive powers, equivalent to those of a minister, who would focus solely on immigration.

Those who obeyed the law should not be put at a disadvantage by those who broke it. For example, the government should stop awarding contracts to contractors who were found to employ and exploit immigrants, paying them a pittance. Such practices should stop because they were an incentive to illegality.

Dr Muscat said equality was important. One aspect that irritated the Maltese was that migrants jumped queues in hospitals and health centres. This issue could be solved with appointments given for visits to clinics.

More doctors should visit the detention centres, relieving the need for migrants to go to clinics. Employment in the same post should require the same qualifications. At present, the Maltese needed far higher qualifications to be engaged as care workers among the migrants than the migrants themselves, on the premise that the latter knew what passing through such trauma meant.

Despite the Immigration Pact, one could not expect progress in burden sharing unless effective action was taken by Malta. The current agreement was voluntary and not binding because the government had been weak.

The opposition was proposing that the government should request the EU Presidency and the Commission to coordinate and establish how many migrants would be taken by other countries. The Dublin II agreement should be revised, and the government should consider releasing itself from some provisions of the agreement.

Firstly, Malta should establish how many migrants it could host in a decent manner which would enable integration. The numbers had to be sustainable. Numbers were far too high at present. One should not consider the number of migrants only on geographic basis but also on economic factors. When that number was exceeded, the government should show its teeth, not with migrants, but by suspending administrative procedures of Dublin II, such as the fingerprinting of all migrants. This was what other countries did. This meant that when a migrant moved on and was re-arrested, a country could not send him back to the EU country he had come from.

If the EU did not change Dublin II and numbers continued to rise, Malta should show that it preferred to defend its national interests.

It was not enough that the Commission Vice-President, Jacques Barrot, had said there would be a small pilot project on burden sharing by the end of next year. And there was no commitment of what would happen next.

Dr Muscat feared this was another tactic by the Commission to win time. But the problem was pressing for Malta, which wanted action, not experiments.

If there was no clear and agreed timeframe to make burden-sharing effective, the government should suspend its membership of the Immigration Pact.

Malta needed to be firm and not be an accomplice with the human traffickers because of outdated rules. When the sustainable number of migrants who could be accommodated was exceeded, Malta should use its veto where unanimity was needed in the EU. This veto should be used sporadically even in areas which had nothing to do with illegal immigration, until the other EU countries took notice and agreed to change the rules.

True, the veto drew political repercussions. But doing nothing caused repercussions too, Dr Muscat said. What needed to be changed, first and foremost, was the rule whereby the EU country which first received the migrants remained responsible for them.

On Frontex, Dr Muscat said Malta also needed to bring about a change in the force's terms of reference because it was ineffective. More countries were needed to participate in Frontex, or else the agency should have its own resources for year-round operations.

Malta should campaign for greater development aid and an updated agricultural policy in the EU so that conditions in Africa could improve, thus easing the need for people to migrate. This was especially the duty of those European countries which, as colonisers, had exploited the countries from which the migrants came.

Perhaps there was a need for something like the Marshall Plan for Africa. But such aid should be given on condition that they facilitated the repatriation of migrants.

Dr Muscat said Libya should be engaged in the issue of immigration, and he felt the government was working in this direction. Malta should seek the same agreement as that reached between Libya and Italy, and between Spain and Mauretania and Senegal. But he had to criticise what appeared to be a lack of commitment by the Libyan authorities to tackle immigration.

Malta should be ready to raise the ante - not by letting anyone drown, but by drawing the attention of the international community to move things. If they did not budge, Malta should make it clear it was prepared to move ahead and if numbers continued to grow, it could not exclude starting to interpret international obligations in a different way that was more in line with the national interest.

Malta should even consider suspending such rules for specific periods. This did not mean allowing people to drown, but helping them and then seeing them on their way. One could not allow people in, out of respect for international norms, only to put them in facilities which were not even fit for dogs. But Malta should only accept that number of migrants which was sustainable.

In 2005, when migration was far lower, even then-Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg had told the Financial Times that Malta could suspend its international obligations.

Dr Muscat said the government should shoulder its responsibilities and follow this plan. In so doing the government would be backed by the opposition. If he did not want to shoulder the burden, the Prime Minister should call a referendum to see the people's view on this plan of action.

Concluding, Dr Muscat said that what was clear was that current government policy was unpopular and ineffective, and a change was needed.

Speaking at the end of yesterday's sitting, Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici said many of Dr Muscat's suggestions were being implemented.

Nationalist MPs Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, Charlò Bonnici and Franco Debono also spoke. A full report will be carried tomorrow.