A growing number of marriages of convenience are now posing a serious challenge to immigrant services, Justice Minister Brian Lenihan has claimed.

The Department of Justice has also uncovered a system of cash payments where citizens from other EU states are being offered inducements to enter into bogus marriages.

The disclosure of the number of residency applications linked to suspected marriages of convenience comes as the final touches are being put to the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill.

Its proposed measures mean foreign couples planning to marry will have to inform the Minister for Justice.

Responding to a parliamentary question last week, Mr Lenihan said the contracting of marriages was posing “a significant challenge” to immigration authorities.

“The Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service of my department has growing experience of marriages being entered into for the sole purpose of enabling the foreign national spouse to enter and/or remain in the State.”

According to the department, 14 applications of residency were refused last year because officials were not satisfied with the bona fides of marriages. Another 53 applications were abandoned after investigators probed the legitimacy of unions.

But Mr Lenihan believes marriages of convenience are more widespread, particularly between non-EU and EU citizens.

“With regard to applications for residence on foot of marriage to a union citizen, approximately 30% of those cases involved persons who were illegally present in the State or on a temporary or limited permissions thereby giving rise to a suspicion that the marriage is one of convenience for the purpose of circumventing immigration controls,” the minister told Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin in his reply.

According to Mr Lenihan’s department, this percentage equates to 1,184 cases.

The minister also detailed how impetuses were being given to EU citizens to enter into contract marriages.

“Further indicators of a problem are to be found in highly unusual patterns of marriages and intelligence in relation to inducements being offered in certain European Union member states for their nationals to marry third country nationals,” he added.

But the accusation that hundreds of couples are tying the knot for the sole purpose of getting into Ireland was disputed by immigrant support groups.

People on limited stays getting married could include students or holidaymakers, argued the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI) last night.

Those suspected of agreeing to marriages of convenience could be “studying for their masters or PhD, so we would say it would be wrong to automatically assume that these are people looking to make a so-called marriage of convenience, rather than people who have genuinely fallen in love”, said ICI chief executive Denise Charlton.