Work permit expiry a fact of life for migrants
Until the 1990s, Ireland had no direct experience of immigration and guest workers and the majority of the Irish public have been somewhat misled on the subject by articles such as this. A more appropriate headline would be 'Silent casualties of the EU expansion'.
The minority of Irish people who avail of such work permit systems elsewhere (for example, UAE and Saudi Arabia) watch with dismay as various pressure groups and correspondents lead an inexperienced general public in an attempt to sway opinion, generating a collective guilt complex that we are somehow responsible for "destroying this man's life" by "sending him home" when his work permit expires.
