Permits for foreign workers to be limited

EMPLOYERS are facing a heavy crackdown on the number of permits issued to foreign workers from next May due to the enlargement of the EU.

The Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Harney, has confirmed that applications for work permits for people outside the EU will “not be favourably considered”.

The decision is a response to the anticipated arrival of up to 50,000 workers from the 10 new EU member states over the next year. The countries are Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Malta and Cyprus.

Ms Harney said she believed any labour shortage would be more than readily catered for by immigrants from the new accession countries.

“We will not be favourably considering work permits except for highly skilled labour that can’t be found in those countries or in the EU generally,” said the Tánaiste.

However, Ms Harney intends to bring forward proposals to allow the spouses of non-EU nurses working in Ireland to take up employment as a measure to reduce the number of foreign-based medical staff leaving Irish hospitals.

In a similar fashion, she has also signalled her intention to lift the current ban on the spouses of foreign diplomatic staff and overseas government agencies from taking up work here.

Around 47,500 work permits were issued last year, of which around one-third were related to workers from the new EU member states.

The permits are issued to Irish employers who find it difficult to source staff to fill vacancies. Such workers are restricted to a named workplace and cannot move between jobs in different companies.

Despite calls from various groups for the same work permits to be issued to asylum seekers awaiting decision on their application for refugee status, Ms Harney said she did not propose to extend the system on the basis that it would not be “sustainable”.

Her decision comes against a background of new figures which show that the number of applications for asylum in Ireland dropped by almost a third last year.

According to Department of Justice figures, a total of 7,939 people applied for asylum in 2003, compared to 11,634 in the previous year.

The decline in the number of applications was most notable in the last quarter of 2003 as the overall figure for the year fell by 32%.

Among the reasons for the decline in the number of asylum seekers was last January’s landmark

Supreme Court ruling that the foreign parents of Irish-born children were not automatically entitled to residency in the State as well as a general increase in the numbers being refused entry once they arrive at airports and ferry terminals.