Amnesty scheme for undocumented migrants in Ireland
Comments
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
I'm sure there's a few who would be interested.
Unlike a lot of the naysayers here, my personal experience with many of these folks shows that they just want to live, work, raise a family and enjoy life, same as anyone else.
Take, for example, asylum seekers, who many here like to claim as scroungers. They were granted the "right to work" in 2018. This "right" was only granted after the Supreme Court found that Ireland, being only 1 of 2 countries which banned asylum seekers from working, had a blanket employment ban that was unconstitutional and the court gave the Government several months to prepare temporary legal provision for employment.
Note, this ruling follows a similar recommendation by the Government Working Group on the protection and reception of asylum seekers that was published in the McMahon Report in 2015.
That sounds great, but what was setup was farcical beyond belief with such conditions as
- Asylum seekers must apply for a work permit
- Must be here 6 months (used to be 9 months) before they are even allowed to apply for a permit to work
- The permit bars asylum seekers from looking for work in An Garda Síochana, the Defence Forces and the civil service among others
The permit costs up to €1,000 (An adult asylum seeker gets 38.50 eur a week from the govt so it would take 6 months of saving, without spending a single penny in that time, to be able to pay for the application)Scratch that, fee was removed- An eligible job must have a minimum salary of €30,000
- Can't apply for anything that requires a driving licence as these cannot be applied for while seeking asylum
- The permit is only valid for 12 months.
- Will only be granted to those awaiting a decision on the asylum status. If a decision against has been made and an appeal is made then a work permit will not be granted
Now, as to the actual permit, this is the ridiculous situation:
This permission is printed double-sided on watermarked paper with your photograph and validity period included and must be presented in this format to your employer or to any relevant bodies should you engage in vocational training, employment or self-employment.
However
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, LMAU are not issuing paper copies of permissions. Your permission will be issued by email. Your permission number will be in the text of the email and a copy of the permission itself is in the accompanying pdf.
This means someone has to go to an employer with something on an A4 sheet they will have to have printed off themselves and hope an employer accepts it as legit. As reported in a linked article below, few do because it looks like a homemade document.
Furthermore, the following are the conditions for any employer who wishes to employ someone who has one of these permits
- Must not employ more than 50% of Non-EEA people
- Must verify that the employee has a labour market access permission
- Must verify that the employee has a valid TRC card.
- Within 21 days of employing a permission holder, they must submit form LMA5 to inform the Minister about the income and employment status of the new hire
- If the employee stops working for an employer, they must within 21 working days of the permission holder ceasing to be employed, inform the Minister of that fact
- The following applies with regards to records also
Now there is also the option to become self-employed however there are 2 stupid restrictions attached to that also. They are
- You can't employ another person
- You can't enter a business relationship with another person
In practice this means you can never grow a business beyond a one-person operation and you also are not allowed to deal with vendors or suppliers so the actual types of business you can setup are VERY limited.
The many barriers to getting work through design and error are also noted in the research paper below.
A research report has found that since asylum seekers in Ireland gained the right to work in June 2018, they are still facing major barriers in access to employment.
The report focuses on the right to decent work for international protection applicants in Ireland. Improved access to decent work is achieved not just through the creation of jobs and employment, but through the creation of jobs of acceptable quality. The report's findings indicate that employment choices are disproportionately restricted for protection applicants and refugees. They routinely have difficulty finding employment in sectors of their choosing or which are relevant to their qualifications, and as a result tend towards a small number of specific employment sectors in which they know they are more likely to find work. Such sectors include childcare, healthcare and security work.
In addition there are still many administrative barriers that prevent asylum seekers from accessing the labour market, such as having no legal right to a driving licence and issues with opening a bank account. Asylum seekers also experience difficulty in accessing employment due to work permits that seem unofficial. These permits are printed on A4 paper, and many employers are sceptical of their validity as a result. As far as women are concerned, they often find it particularly difficult to secure work due to a lack of accessible childcare.
So when some folks go around shouting about asylum seekers being a drain on the state and not working, they really look rather silly as the system has been designed and managed in such a way as to make it incredibly difficult to actually get work in the first place.
Thankfully, in February 2021 the Irish government committed to putting employment support at the core of the new model being implemented to replace the Direct Provision model, following the publication of the Day Report. The first step of this new model was to shorten the waiting time for access to the labour market for asylum seekers.
Time will tell as to how many changes will be made to rectify the farcical situation that currently exists
1 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
![[Deleted User]](/applications/dashboard/design/images/defaulticon.png)
