Listeners to RosCom Radio, Roscommon's community station, may be a little surprised if they tune in on Friday evenings to hear broadcasts in Portuguese, writes Chris Dooley
For the hundreds of Brazilians living in the area, however, the new weekly programme is a valuable source of information and entertainment.
Father Kevin Keenan, a Divine Word Missionaries priest who provides advice and support to Roscommon's Brazilian community, is behind the initiative.
In the 45-minute broadcasts, which begin at 7.30 p.m., he plays Brazilian music and provides information about happenings in the area, from Mass times to cultural events. Information about the entitlements and legal rights of non-national workers is also relayed.
Father Keenan, who worked in Brazil for five years after three years there as a student, says Brazilians and other migrant workers have been well received in Roscommon.
"When you consider the numbers [of foreign nationals] that are here in such a small town, the reaction has been open and friendly. The Brazilians are very courteous, and the locals have picked that up, so there's been no animosity," he said. Employers, too, were showing more awareness of their responsibilities.
The Hannon's poultry plant, for example, which was the subject of highly-publicised exploitation allegations two years ago, was now more open to receiving representations about workers' conditions, he said.
The Labour Relations Commission found in 2001 that the plant had been making illegal deductions from the wages of three Brazilian workers.
In the same year, an employee who broke into a sacked Brazilian worker's room was subsequently convicted of burglary. His behaviour was described by the judge as "bully boy tactics".
Mr John McCarrick, SIPTU's Roscommon branch secretary, said few of the non-nationals working in the Roscommon area were represented by a union. An exception was at the Dawn Meats plant in Ballaghaderreen.
Attempts by SIPTU to recruit migrant workers elsewhere had been unsuccessful, he said, because of opposition by employers and fear on the part of the workers.
The union is particularly concerned about conditions in the services sector, which is largely non-union and, as such, not monitored.