The system used by the government's agency for asylum seekers did not encourage immigrants to be self-sufficient, the director of the Jesuit Refugee Services in Malta said.

Fr Joseph Cassar explained that if immigrants left open centres, which were run by the agency, their monetary allowance was stopped.

It often happened that immigrants, who lived in such centres, found a temporary job that allowed them to rent their own apartment in search of freedom and independence.

However, according to agency's policy, immigrants who failed to sign at the open centre for over three weeks were struck off the residents' list by the Agency for the Welfare of Asylum Seekers.

Fr Cassar pointed out that the problem was that these immigrants' jobs were not stable as they were often seasonal. Once out of a job, they could no longer afford the rent and with no agency to turn to risked ending up on the street.

Aware of this job uncertainty and the agency's policies, he said, immigrants thought twice before moving out of the open centre and losing their allowance.

"The system used by the agency assumes it is easy for immigrants to find employment... It doesn't promote independence and self-sufficiency," he said.

Fr Cassar was quoting some of the observations made in an unpublished pilot study into immigrants' views carried out by JRS and other stakeholders, including the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

He was speaking during a business breakfast, entitled Homeless People and Asylum People, organised by the National Implementing Body within the Education Ministry.

Fr Cassar said that according to the pilot study, among the reasons that led to poverty among immigrants was the lack of accommodation, of access to health facilities and of jobs.

Discussing the agency, he said the pilot study showed the lack of clear guidelines on what would lead to the withdrawal of the service agreement between the agency and immigrants.

There were times when the reasons to end the agreement were not very clear.

Agency director Alexander Tortell said that over the past eight years the agency had provided services to 13,000 immigrants.

He said the vast majority granted protection in Malta saw themselves as "still in transit" since their final goal was to reach central Europe or America.

This meant that more often than not, Malta offered a form of "transitory integration" as full integration would take place elsewhere.

Referring to Fr Cassar's comments, which he described as a "distorted picture of our services", he said the agency would reply in due course when the pilot study was published.