Former deputy director of military intelligence of the Irish Defence Forces Michael Murphy has said that Ireland's asylum system is "open" for exploitation.
It comes after a Government report warned immigration officials in Ireland may not be able to perform robust identity checks and security screening on asylum seekers due to the country's lack of access to key EU security databases.
A new implementation plan for the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum - which is due to come into force next year - states that Ireland "may not be able to carry out the most robust identity validation" due to the country's exclusion from the Schengen Area and the related IT border security systems.
Speaking on RTÉ's This Week, Mr Murphy said: "The system is wide open for abuse.
"You have people coming in, travelling in without passports.
"We don't know who they are. If you're coming from a third country, say far away, how do you do the security check on who they are?"
"They can come in on a false passport. They can come in and stay in the country, not ever be discovered.
"So therefore yes, our system or lack of border control is a security threat to the State."
Mr Murphy said that abuse of the system was harming the cases of those who are actually seeking asylum in Ireland, and that the security checks should be more balanced.
"I think the first thing is actually balancing a little bit more to the security side and of course, look after the genuine people who are fleeing war.
"There's a lot of people who are not fleeing war and using the system to get into the country," he said.
"That abuse is actually hurting those who are genuinely looking for asylum," he added.
Mr Murphy said that Ireland was vulnerable by not having control over the Common Travel Area with the UK.
"The fact that we don't have control of between what's happening between ourselves in the United Kingdom, it's a weakness.
"But I think it can be covered by other systems," he said.
Read more: Ireland may lack 'robust' asylum seeker checks over EU database exclusion
"We actually signed into the advanced personal information and we also have signed into the personal name record for travelling into this country to prevent terrorism.
"We're not applying those, so therefore if they were applied, it would certainly cover a lot of the difficulties that we see here by not signing into these three agreements," he added.
Mr Murphy said that an agreement with the UK similar to the ESTA system in the US would be favourable.
"We need an agreement with the United Kingdom, because that's where a lot of the people coming into the country are coming from.
"As the government is saying, they can actually replicate in somewhat way the three systems that we are not signed up to in the European Union, like the ESTA," he said.
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'Government hasn't a clue' - Tóibín
Meanwhile, Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín has said that Irish immigration officials not being able to access EU databases on criminal records of asylum seekers was down to a lack of Government information.
Also speaking on RTÉ's This Week, he said: The Government hasn't a clue what's going on in so many aspects to this. It took me two years of asking the Minister for Justice, where were people coming from before she actually found out," he said.
"The answer is to share that information. We don't necessarily have to opt in to Schengen. The information exists and that information should be provided to all EU countries," he added.
He said that his party wants to see stricter regulations on people entering the country through Northern Ireland.
Mr Tóibín said he was not advocating for Northern Ireland to close its borders, but rather impose stricter checks on those coming in.
The Department of Justice told the programme that while Ireland will not have access to the entry/exit system, ETIAS and the Visa Information System - the Government has opted into the EuroDac system, which is a fingerprint database for asylum seekers that will be upgraded by June of next year.
It will store official documents and photographs of asylum seekers as well as their first place of application to help decrease secondary movement.
The Department said that while Ireland cannot opt in to the Schengen IT systems - the State intends to legislate nationally to align with its provisions.
It said the State will carry out screening on anybody who enters Ireland irregularly - this will consist of identity checks, health checks, security and criminal screening and gathering fingerprint data for the EuroDac database.
