Mick Clifford: Ireland’s immigration debate ignores the workers keeping vital services running
Visit any nursing home and you'll observe foreign workers engaged in the primal task of physically accompanying older people. File Picture.
This week, two workers from abroad who had been promised employment but were left high and dry were awarded compensation.
Tatenda Ncube and Brenda Mubalwa are from Zimbabwe. They, along with seven compatriots, were offered jobs with a healthcare company which had a contract with the child and family agency, Tusla. The work involved providing emergency care for vulnerable children at a centre in Co Cavan.
This is difficult and vital work. Vulnerable children need focused nurturing in attempting to rescue their childhoods. Major efforts are required to ensure that they will have a decent shot at making a life for themselves. The work is physically and emotionally draining. It is also undervalued in our society, and correspondingly underpaid.
Maybe that’s why it was deemed necessary to go to the furthest reaches of Africa to find people willing to do this demanding task. Before leaving home, the recruited Zimbabweans had to pay for their work permits, and in advance for accommodation. Their salary was pegged at around €30,000 per annum.
They arrived in this strange country to be told that the healthcare company’s contract was cancelled. Left without any income, they experienced severe hardship. One of the workers told the Work Relations Commission (WRC) she had been left “wondering where you’re going to get your next meal”.
The WRC described the treatment of the workers as “particularly egregious”. This week, the Labour Court confirmed the WRC’s award of over €30,000 each to two of the workers. Most of the others have received similar compensation.
This is one snapshot of recruiting and retention in the workforce today. In most cases, the experience is more positive, but seeking personnel from outside the EU or the UK to fill jobs is a vital component of recruitment in the prevailing economic model.
Another low-paid sector in healthcare predominantly peopled by immigrants is care for the elderly. Visit any nursing home and you'll observe foreign workers engaged in the primal task of physically accompanying older people in the departure lounge of their lives. Again, it would appear that in an economy with full employment, Irish people don’t want to do this work, certainly not at the rate being paid. As previous generations of Irish immigrants will tell you from their experience abroad, there’s nothing unusual in such an attitude in a wealthy country.
Right now, one in every five people among the 2.7m at work was born outside the State. Around one third of those are from beyond Europe’s borders. Without these workers, the country — including vital services — would come to a halt.
Nobody, as yet, has proposed an alternative economic model that wouldn’t require or attract the current level of immigrant workers to a nominally booming economy.
One problem with the prevailing model is housing everybody, particularly in today’s environment. At a time when adult children can’t leave home, and buying is beyond the reach of many, the scramble for affordable or public housing is acute.
In that vein, figures were released recently for the number of non-Irish-born people on public housing waiting lists. The Housing Agency’s annual report has it that about 28% of those on waiting lists were born outside the State.
This, and similar figures released for some individual local authorities, have provided fodder for those who are convinced the country is en route to hell in a handbasket due to immigration.
Such people may have been among those referenced by a reporter from the Gript news outlet who put a question on housing to Tánaiste Simon Harris in a post-budget briefing last Tuesday.
The reporter pointed out that €3bn was being allocated for social housing.
“Many people following the saga recently where figures have come out that show many of those in receipt of social housing or on social housing lists are not citizens, and so will be thinking what’s the point of pouring billions of taxpayers' money into social housing when much of it will go to people who aren’t even citizens of the country,” he said.
Harris replied that long-term residency is required to go on a housing list, and noted the vital work that many foreign-born people are doing in this country. He might also have pointed out that if this is a “saga”, it’s one that has bypassed the vast majority of the public. And that foreign-born workers are also taxpayers.
Qualifying to apply for social housing requires that those born outside the State are here for, typically, at least five years. The vast majority are either from the EU or UK, or have come here on invitation to work. There is also a small cohort representing a tiny percentage of overall immigration who qualify after being accepted for international protection.
It is entirely legitimate to ask a minister about allocation of public money for housing; but there are others, particularly online, who grab any kind of statistics to present immigration as a threat.
Social media is heavy with a small but vocal contingent who jump on anything that will incite anger, resentment, and fear towards immigrants.
For instance, there was no mention in the figures disseminated about the requirement to house workers invited here to care for vulnerable children, people with disabilities, the elderly. Nothing highlighting that the people who get up early in the morning include legions of immigrants en route to low-paying jobs that Irish people won’t do. Such workers are entitled to be treated with the same rights as anybody else.
There are places where immigrant workers are treated differently than those who are native-born. Saudi Arabia is the most outstanding example of how those brought into the country for work are considered as little more than serfs, and treated accordingly. Thankfully, we are not at a point where anybody — publicly at least — wants to emulate Saudi Arabia.
Notwithstanding all that, immigration in general is a concern for a growing number of people. Figures released by the Central Statistics Office last month show that for nearly a quarter of those canvassed, immigration is a “top-three issue facing the country”.
In such a milieu, discussion on immigration should be welcomed. We could discuss whether the prevailing economic model is right for now, how changing it might — or might not — require extra taxes, a drop in living standards, a depletion of services, and problems with the capacity to find people to do primal, often back-breaking, work. That kind of conversation would be entirely worthy of public debate.
Among those who frequently suggest we need to talk more about immigration, there are a few who genuinely want to examine such issues. For the greater part, though, the clamour to have a discussion on the issue originates with the kind of people who prefer not to mention the work immigrants do, like nurturing vulnerable children, or accompanying our elderly on their final journey, or providing any number of vital services.
Remember that the next time you see stats like those for housing being used without context or nuance.
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