Minister for Integration Conor Lenihan has sought a meeting with Fás to discuss the rapid increase in unemployment amongst migrant workers in Ireland.
Live Register figures released last week show an increase from 14.6 per cent in January 2008 to 19.6 per cent last month of non-Irish nationals who are now registered as unemployed.
Of the 327,861 people on the Live Register in January, 64,334 are non-Irish nationals. Their number increased by 9,879 since December.
Commenting on his request to meet with Fás, Mr Lenihan said “I have sought a skills assessment from Fás of those immigrants now registering for dole payments and seeking to go back in to work.
"I feel there is an urgent need to quickly establish the linguistic or skills gap that exists among migrants who are now unemployed."
"I shall also be asking what service provision on retraining packages that Fás can provide.”
Of the non-Irish nationals who are registered as unemployed, a 256 per cent increase has been recorded amongst people from the European Union accession states.
The so-called EU 15 (excluding Ireland and UK) have increased by 1,892 or 108 per cent while other non-Irish nationals increased their representations on the Live Register by 4,141 or 70 per cent.
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