Staff ‘racist and abusive’

Staff at the Department of Social Protection (DSP) have been rude, racist and used abusive language when dealing with migrants, a new report shows.

A number of poor practices in the department, particularly in the community welfare service (CWS), meant immigrants were “thwarted from accessing their social protection rights by the very government department that is entrusted with providing for these rights”, the report said.

Examples of inappropriate behaviour included migrants being told to “go back home to **** or wherever”, and “too many people from **** are coming here to take benefits for free”.