Workers held as ‘slaves’ in Irish homes

WORKERS are being held in slave conditions in Irish homes and businesses because of a lack of legislation to either protect them or prosecute their enslavers.

The Migrant Rights Centre of Ireland (MRCI) revealed it regularly finds cases of people working as forced labour, but is often powerless to help them.

The group is calling for the introduction of laws similar to Britain’s new Slavery and Servitude Act, which enabled police there to move on long-held suspicions about the enslavement of men at a Traveller camp in Bedfordshire.