Ireland has a market-driven immigration policy that seeks to attract temporary workers to fill skills gaps and exposes many immigrants to long hours of lower wages than Irish nationals, a new report has claimed.
Voices of Immigrants - the Challenges of Inclusion, published today by the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI), includes data from the Central Statistics Office that show that non-EU nationals work 15-and-a-half hours above the weekly average.
The report suggests the State is out of line with the rest of the European Union because immigrants must be here for ten years before they can apply for leave to remain.
As this is a discretionary decision for the Minister for Justice, this is not even a guaranteed right, according to the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI) study.
According to the ICI chairwoman, Sr Stanislaus Kennedy, Ireland has a "piecemeal, ad hoc, fragmented and often negative approach to immigration causing great suffering and grief for immigrants and confusion for the public".
The ICI report recommends that the principle of permanence underpin Irish immigration policy. It suggests that secure, permanent residency, which does not require a person to change their citizenship, be granted as a matter of right within a far shorter time than the ten years required now.
Twenty-two male and female immigrants were interviewed for this study, from a range of backgrounds, and with different legal status.
Eighteen of them reported racist abuse, ranging from verbal taunts to stone throwing.
The report recommends that the existing legal protections be strengthened and calls for the establishment of a Ministry of State for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs at the Department of the Taoiseach to co-ordinate service provision for immigrants.