While they will be able to work, they will have to find a new home, writes Kitty Holland
Suzanna Medricky and her husband, Vratislav, had mixed feelings when they received a letter from the Reception and Integration Agency last week.
From the Czech Republic, one of the 10 EU accession states, they were told that from May 1st they would not be allowed to continue living at the refugee reception centre in Athlone, where they have been since February 2002.
They would have to find their own accommodation and should contact their local community welfare officer about welfare entitlements, they were told.
"I was happy," said Suzanna, since from May 1st she and her husband will be able to access the labour market in the same way as any Irish person.
"And my big boy, Lukas (11), is very happy in school. We like it here a lot. I want to work, and my husband wants to work."
Life for her family was "not good" in the Czech Republic, she explained. "My father was a gypsy. It was difficult for us to work and difficult for my children."
She has another son, Martin (2), and a daughter, Caroline (eight months), born here.
However, she is also worried that they will not be able to find or pay for their own accommodation and she explained that Vratislav was out looking for a house.
Asked how they would pay rent and a deposit on their own accommodation, she said: "I don't know anything about how to pay. I hope we will get help from the council or something for the deposit."
The family has been in the State for 22 months, two months short of the "habitual residence" time-frame stipulated in the new restrictions introduced by the Department of Social and Family Affairs last month in an effort to counter "welfare tourism".
Eligibility for all but emergency payments requires applicants to have been resident here for two years.
Although an official from the local Department of Social and Family Affairs met the 10 affected families at the Athlone centre yesterday morning, "people are still pretty unsure what is going to happen," a member of staff at the centre said. "Things are still quite up the air."
He said there were Polish, Czech and Lithuanian families at the centre, and few spoke good English. "They are happy to be able to work on the same basis as Irish people, but things are a bit confused," he said.