Silent casualties of the Celtic Tiger

THE advert in the local newspaper promised good jobs in Ireland.

For Igor Shushkevich in the former Russian republic of Belarus, it seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime.

"They were looking for people. They were trying to bring the people into the country because there were shortfalls in the labour force.

"At that time they were trying to get as many people as possible. Mary Harney she facilitated that. That's how I came to Ireland," he said.

Igor arrived in Ireland, on a flight paid for by a recruitment agency, in late 1999 and was soon working in a well-known hotel as a waiter and barman.

He wasn't alone.

Encouraged by a Government sponsored campaign, called Jobs Ireland, and numerous recruitment agencies clambering to entice workers, tens of thousands from Eastern Europe and beyond left everything behind and began a new life in Ireland.

Many of those who came are from the 10 EU accession countries and will no longer require work permits from this summer.

These workers will have the same rights to employment and social welfare as anyone from an existing EU member state.

But approximately 60% of those who were given work permits in the last five years came from outside the ten accession countries.

Like Igor, their future suddenly looks a great deal less certain as the Government now fully expects to fill all its labour needs from accession countries.

Speaking in December, Tánaiste Mary Harney said: "We hope that, with the exception of high-skill labour, nurses and maybe ethnic groups required for ethnic restaurants, all our immigration needs for the foreseeable future will be met from the new countries that come into the EU."

So where does that leave the tens of thousands of workers from outside the accession countries who are already here working on work permits, in many cases for up to four years or more?

Last year alone close to 30,000 non-accession workers came to Ireland. Most work tough jobs in the low skilled services industries.

The department says they can stay indefinitely as long as their employer renews their work permit. But a work permit costs €500 a year and involves unnecessary paper work.

Why would any employer continue to employ such a person when there will be a steady flow of accession workers who will cost nothing to employ and involve no paperwork whatsoever?

And even if an employer were to continue to renew work permits for a non accession worker, the migrant worker would be bound to that employer forever or face expulsion from the country a far from satisfactory situation.

Effectively from this summer, precious few work permits will be issued to non-accession workers for new jobs.

Indeed the department is already sending back work permit applications to employers advising them to reapply with an accession worker.

While some would argue that non accession workers were never promised anything more than a one year renewable work permit, such a view belies the reality behind enticing workers from abroad.

That point was made at an international conference on immigrants in Dublin this year by former US congressman, Bruce Morrison the man behind the US Morrison visas for Irish citizens.

Advocating a green card system, Mr Morrison said Ireland had gone looking for workers and was giving no consideration to the fact that it had ended up with people.

Now having served their purpose Igor, and the thousands like him, are about to be squeezed out of the labour market that asked them to come her in the first place.

Many now face a stark choice: Become illegal or go home.

Igor, who left his job and work permit recently because he was being paid less than his Irish colleagues in more junior positions, hasn't yet made up his mind. He is still desperately hoping someone will employ him and apply for a work permit but no one will consider it given the number of accession workers just around the corner.

"The Department of Trade and Enterprise's policy is to issue as few work permits as possible and the people from the new accession countries - they will have preference," he said.

"Nobody seems to be willing to go for it because the Government policy at the moment is very discouraging. You have to pay €500.

"It's a lot of hassle and money and they can't take me on straight away. Nobody wants to wait two or three months."

A spokesman for Mary Harney said the department was aware of the issue and generally tried to be pragmatic in how it dealt with such situations.

However, he also pointed out that the work permit system was never intended as anything other than a temporary measure to meet short term gaps in the labour market. It is not intended as a mechanism for long term immigration, he said.

That's precisely what those dealing with immigrant workers say is the problem.

Chief executive of the Immigrant Council, Denise Charlton said the system was being unfair to immigrant workers.

"We have to see the fact that immigration is not temporary it is permanent. It's also important that we really do look at rights and entitlements.

"This has to be about seeing that immigration is permanent. Things like long-term residency for example will have to be considered.

"The Government must make the choice to give rights to those who are here," she said. Ms Charlton said the Council was seeing an increasing number of non-accession workers who were concerned for their future after May and warned that many may be forced underground.

"There will be very little protection for these people as long as we see them only as an economic support," she said.

Her comments come as the economic think tank, the ERSI announced that Ireland will need 300,000 educated migrant workers in the next six years to make up for shortfalls in the number of graduates being produced by Irish universities.

Those workers when they come might be interested to hear what Igor would say to Mary Harney if he had the chance. "I would ask her a couple of questions. The first one would be - why did you let us into the country and strip us of all human rights. You let us in the country and you didn't provide us with any protection," he said.

"It's not that I came here illegally. I came here because they wanted us to fill in the shortages in the labour market and now they want us to go.

"What I'm trying to say is that it's not fair and it's not humane for the people who came here and are now in this position. I have nowhere to go basically. What am I to do now?" he asked.

Igor, having been asked to come here and having given four years of his life, is now being discarded.

He, and the thousands like him, are the silent casualties of the Celtic Tiger.