Foreign workers are needed to keep the economy going, says ISME

IRELAND needs foreign workers to fill the labour shortage in the services and agricultural sectors, the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises (ISME) association insisted yesterday.

Ireland is the only country to allow people from new EU member states the right to work without restrictions from May 1. But Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said we may change the social welfare system to stop these workers claiming benefits here, following a similar measure being introduced in Britain.

ISME, however, warned yesterday against cutting back on the number of work permits being issued to foreigners here because figures from recent years show that we need them.

There were 47,551 permits issued to foreign workers last year and they took jobs that many Irish people were refusing to do in the services/retail, catering and agriculture/food industries, ISME chief executive Mark Fielding said.

"The agriculture industry would have been on its knees and the catering industry would certainly have suffered if we did not have them foreign workers are needed to keep the economy going," he said.

Over the last number of years we have become a bit lazy ourselves and we cannot get people to work in certain areas like this, Mr Fielding added.

But people who are coming from many of the accession countries have no problems getting up early or working unsociable hours, Mr Fielding said.

Asked if Irish workers were refusing these jobs because they are low-paid, the ISME chief executive said:

"We have the third-best minimum wage in Europe, the foreign workers are not very badly paid and compared to where they have come from they are probably six times better off in Ireland."

It is a boom for foreign workers to get paid at a rate of €7 to €7.50 an hour compared to the minimum wage in the accession countries, he added.

Mr Fielding said he believed Ireland should allow workers from the new EU member states the right to work here from May 1. "We need free access and there should be no limitation on their rights to work here the assurances we got from the Taoiseach and Social Welfare Minister Mary Coughlan is that they will watch for any social welfare abuses," he said.

The ISME chief executive said research had shown we would have an influx of people from the accession countries in May. Irish workers need 52 weeks of contributions before they can claim the dole.

"Workers coming from Lithuania or Poland have three months of their own dole before they need to go on social welfare and at that stage they have no right to stay if they do not have a job," Mr Fielding said.

However, he did concede that we need to keep a watching brief on possible social welfare abuses here especially since Britain has introduced measures to stop workers from accession countries claiming benefits there for two years.

"We cannot be the only country in the EU that has an open door policy we have to watch the free travel area between ourselves and the UK," Mr Fielding said.