Tag Archives: right to work
This afternoon.
Outside Leinster House.
Members of Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland, Anti-Racism Network Ireland and Refugee and Migrant Solidarity Ireland, and their supporters, are holding a demonstration calling for a meaningful right to work for asylum seekers in Ireland.
It comes ahead of an expected announcement from the Supreme Court tomorrow.
MASI writes:
The Supreme Court is due to make a formal announcement [tomorrow] about the unconstitutionality of the ban on asylum seekers’ right to work in this state. This follows on from the court’s decision in May last year that this total ban is unconstitutional.
Since then, the Government has dragged its heels until finally, last week, it pushed a motion through the Oireachtas about opting in to the EU directive on reception conditions for asylum seekers including its very general directive on the right to work which allows individual states to decide on the details themselves.
MASI believes that the government is planning to introduce the most restrictive terms it can get away with, while spinning this as a sign of their great tolerance and charity toward asylum seekers.
Our beliefs are well-founded.
The Government has not given any detail of what the right to work for asylum seekers will actually look like, and now has managed to get a majority across parties to let them get away with adopting the most restrictive possible ‘interim measures’ on back of the promise to opt-in to the EU directive some months down the road, without giving any detail about what shape this will take in reality for asylum seekers who want to work.
These interim measures apply the existing work permits scheme to asylum seekers. This scheme limits the right to work in the state to a handful of highly paid professions, and requires the person applying to earn a starting salary of €30,000 minimum, and to pay €500-€1,000 euro for a work permit.
These are unreachable targets for most people, never mind for people living in direct provision on €21 a week.
If these interim measures are a taste of things to come, very few people seeking protection in Ireland will have the opportunity to earn their own living or support their families.
Workable?
at
This morning.
Further to the Supreme Court ruling last May that the ban preventing asylum seekers is unconstitutional…
The Irish Times reported that Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan is to bring the Government’s plans to allow asylum seekers work to Cabinet next week.
Fiach Kelly reported:
Asylum seekers who spend more than nine months in the direct provision system without having their case decided on are to be given the right to work, become self-employed or access training.
…Under the Minister’s proposals, those who meet the criteria will be entitled to work by way of renewable six-month permits.
However, the right will be subject to some restrictions, such as areas of the economy in which those concerned can work.
… Those eligible to work will be given a “temporary and renewable” six-month stamp from the Department of Justice, which will also allow them to become self-employed or access vocational training.
However, access to work will be allowed to “certain but restricted sectors of employment”, and these areas of work will be kept under review.
The right to work will not be given to those whose status is decided within nine months, or those who seek to appeal or review a decided status.
Ministers to approve work rights for asylum seekers (The Irish Times)
Readers may wish to note that, in 1999, there was a brief reprieve for certain asylum seekers from the work ban.
Following widespread calls from business groups, trade unions and advocacy groups – and a U-turn by Fianna Fail – the then Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats coalition allowed asylees work.
The work initiative allowed for asylees, who had applied for protection before July 26, 1999, and who had been waiting on a decision on their application for over 12 months, to apply for work.
By the end of June 2000, 1,032 out of 3,241 asylees entitled to work had either found a job or had stopped claiming social welfare.
In addition, this right to work was on a non-transferable basis, so that an asylee couldn’t work independently of a job specified by a prospective employer, while the employer also had to pay a monthly fee of IR£25 – or a one-off annual fee of IR£125 – to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland
A child at a protest over the direct provision system in Limerick last August
You may know the asylum seeker/direct provision review report is due to be published later today.
Well.
“The report is expected to propose that new asylum seekers should have the right to work after nine months of seeking refugee status. At present, Ireland is one of just two EU member states with a blanket working ban on all asylum seekers.”
“Another key proposal may lead to residency for more than 3,000 asylum seekers who have spent five years waiting for their claims to be dealt with by Irish authorities. Many of the proposals hinge on the introduction of a new streamlined asylum process, aimed at processing claims within a six- to nine-month period.”
Finally?
New asylum seekers may receive right to work (Irish Times)
Previously: Shutting Out The Asylum Seekers
How The Common European Asylum System Will Work
Photocall Ireland
Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald
The Irish Times is reporting this morning that the Government will establish a working group next month to review Ireland’s direct provision system.
The matters to be examined will include the weekly payments (€19.10 for adults, €9.60 for children, which have remained unchanged since 2000) and access to college. Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald also promises to introduce a system which would streamline the processing asylum applications.
It should be noted that this streamlined approach has been promised several times by several previous justice ministers.
The Irish Times article adds:
“However, [Justice Minister France Fitzgerald] ruled out extending the right to work for asylum seekers who have been in the system for long periods, due to the high level of unemployment in the State.”
Readers may recall that, although asylum seekers are banned from working under the Refugee Act 1996, there was an exception to the rule in 1999 when – following widespread calls from business groups, trade unions and advocacy groups – the Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats coalition allowed asylees work, under certain conditions.
The move was seen as a significant U-turn by the main government party, Fianna Fáil, as it had publically clashed with its coalition partner, the PDs, on the matter for almost a year prior to the changing of its stance on the issue.
The work initiative allowed for asylees, who had applied for protection before July 26, 1999, and who had been waiting on a decision on their application for over 12 months, to apply for work. By the end of June 2000, 1,032 out of 3,241 asylees entitled to work had either found a job or had stopped claiming social welfare.
Readers may wish to recall a few things that happened in the run-up to the work ban being lifted, albeit briefly.
In May 1998, at its annual conference, the trade union IMPACT called for asylees to be allowed work, while also calling for a Charter on Asylum Rights in Ireland.
Two months later, a campaign specifically calling for asylees to be allowed work was led by advocacy group Asylum Rights Alliance.
It was endorsed by more than 100 organisations – including ICTU and the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed. The late former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, of FG, supported the campaign, calling the ban “ill-conceived” and “incomprehensible”.
In July 1998, a survey in the Irish Times showed more than 80% of people believed asylees should be allowed work while.
In November 1998, the Economic and Social Research Institute produced a report stating Ireland was facing a labour shortage and needed to find 285,000 extra employees between 1995 and 2003.
Further evidence of an economic interest in allowing asylees work came in February 1999, when the then Governor of the Bank of Ireland Howard Kilroy also called for asylees to work, in order to help meet labour shortages.
In July 1999, CSO figures showed Ireland’s unemployment figure was below 100,000 for the first time in 19 years.
In an Irish Times editorial on July 22, 1999, the work ban was branded “perverse”.
Before the ban was lifted, but reading the change in sentiment, an Irish Times editorial in 1999, foretold:
“Where humanitarian considerations failed to move the heart of this Government on the issue of asylum seekers, it seems that economic self-interest may do the job.”
In the Dàil, there were debates about the then labour shortage and desires of Ireland’s main employers’ group IBEC.
On Thursday, June 24, 1999, then Labour TD Michael D Higgins noted:
“Considerable weight has been added to the argument for allowing asylum seekers to work by the support of IBEC. The employers’ organisation has identified a skills shortage which is threatening the economy and which must be addressed. Meanwhile, a skills bank which could make a net contribution to the State lies untapped because someone decided that asylum seekers should not be allowed to work, under any circumstances, pending the determination of their applications. I understand that the ICTU has also supported the argument… Given the weight of these combined arguments, I cannot see why a decision cannot be made.”
On the same day, FF TD Marian McGennis also noted:
“Our decision should not be based on a request by IBEC or any employers’ group that because there are skills shortages, a right to work should be granted to a person to whom we would not have granted it two years ago when unemployment was at 240,000. The decision must be based on granting the right to work to asylum seekers after a certain period of time. When we have no skills shortages we may claim we will employ only our own people, and that would be racist. We should grant it because it is a human right.”
Government to review conditions for asylum seekers (Carl O’Brien, Irish Times)
Photocall Ireland
(Alan Shatter at a Citizenship Ceremony in the Convention centre, Dublin, last year)
In January 1999, the High Court ruled that Section five (1) (e) of the 1935 Aliens Act, under which the State deported 60 people in 1998, was unconstitutional.
In May of the same year, the Supreme Court upheld this rule.
And in early July, when Fianna Fáil and the PDs were in coalition, the Dáil passed an Immigration Bill before summer recess, with 74 Government and Opposition amendments taken in one vote, which passed 73-64.
The overriding purpose of the bill was to give the Government statutory powers to resume deporting asylum seekers.
However, much of the discussion in the Dáil in relation to the Bill centered on debating one of the amendments regarding whether asylum seekers should be allowed to work or not.
[Then Justice Minister} John O’Donoghue said this was an amendment that the Government was still considering).
In one of the exchanges, Labour’s Jan O’Sullivan called for asylum seekers, who had been in the country for three months, to be allowed to work.
The Irish Times reported at the time:
“Mr Ivor Callely (FF, Dublin North Central) opposed the amendment because “it would give an asylum seeker false hope if, after going through due process, his or her application was unsuccessful. It would create a lot of difficulties and would be unfair.”
He pointed out that 80 per cent of people with disabilities were unable to find employment. “I do not hear people shouting on their behalf or saying they should be given an opportunity to work.”
However
“Mr Alan Shatter (FG, Dublin South) said Mr Callely’s suggestion of false hope for asylum-seekers was “an extraordinarily asinine argument. Allowing them to work allows them the dignity of earning a living while awaiting a decision about their future, no more and no less than that.”
In late July, 1999, the FF/PD coalition decided to allow any asylum seeker who had entered Ireland and applied for asylum before July 26, 1999, to work – on the basis that the asylum seeker had been waiting for a decision on their application for refugee status for 12 months or more.
The Department of Justice estimated that this would allow between 2,000 and 3,000 asylum seekers work.
At the time, there reportedly were up to 6,000 asylum seekers awaiting a decision, while the average waiting time for a new application was 12 months.
The move followed public disagreement between Minister O’Donoghue, who was opposed to allowing asylum seekers work, and the then Tánaiste Mary Harney, who supported the campaign to allow people in that category to work.
As Mr O’Donoghue put it:
“Giving a right to work would simply create another ‘pull’ factor which would put further pressure on the asylum-processing system and continue to delay recognition for genuine refugees in need of protection.”
So, how did the work permit scheme go?
Not very well.
The right to work was on a restricted, non-transferable basis, meaning the asylum seeker was not allowed to work independently of a job specified by a prospective employer, essentially leaving the asylum seeker open to being exploited.
The employer also had to pay a monthly fee of £25 or a one-off annual fee of £125 to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
Also, prospective employers had to prove that the vacancy could not have been filled by an Irish or other EU national – both deterring measures by all accounts.
A study by the Irish Refugee Council, in 2000, found that DoETE figures showed just 67 work permits were issued between July 27, 1999 and December 15, 1999.
The non-transferable work permit system ended in December 1999, to be replaced with a system whereby the Department of Justice would provide a letter confirming their right to work. The letter would be shown by the asylum seeker to the prospective employer.
The IRC found that, by the end of June 2000, 1,032 out of 3,241 asylum seekers entitled to work had either found a job or had stopped claiming social welfare – meaning two thirds of those eligible had still to find a job, a year after the scheme was devised.
Earlier this year, in March, as part of Ireland’s EU Presidency, Justice Minister Alan Shatter announced revised EU laws on the processing of asylum claims.
This is part of the Common European Asylum System which has been designed to maintain consistent and equitable treatment of asylum seekers across Europe.
But Ireland has opted out of this.
Why?
Explaining Ireland’s decision in the Dáil, Minister Shatter said:
“The principal reason for Ireland’s position is the provisions of Article 11 of the 2003 Directive which deals with access to the labour market for asylum seekers. Article 11 provides that if a decision at first instance has not been taken within one year of the presentation of an application for asylum, and this delay cannot be attributed to the applicant, Member States shall decide the conditions for granting access to the labour market for the applicant.”
“This is contrary to the existing statutory position in Ireland which provides that an asylum seeker shall not seek or enter employment. This prohibition in Irish law is maintained in the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill, which I intend to republish.“
“Extending the right to work to asylum seekers would almost certainly have a profoundly negative impact on application numbers.”
And on it goes.
Shatter transcript via Kildarestreet.com
(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)