The Minister for Justice has promised to bring forward proposals before Christmas permitting spouses of migrant workers to work. One person affected spoke to Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent
Olga Dubyna carries the photograph of her two sons everywhere. Two solemn-looking teenage boys, dressed in their best clothes, gaze out of the picture. They have been living with their grandparents for the past four years, waiting for the time they can be reunited with their parents in Ireland.
Olga and her husband are among the people who have contributed to Ireland's growing wealth. They both came to Ireland from Ukraine with work permits, he to work with IBM, she to work in a factory in Finglas.
Unfortunately, the factory was adversely affected by 9/11 in the US, and went on to part-time working.
She changed her employer to keep working full-time, but her new employer did not seek a work permit for her, and when she queried it, she was dismissed. She then went on to a spouse dependant visa, granted to the spouses of those with work permits or work visas. At the moment the right to seek work is only granted to the spouses of very limited categories of immigrant workers, notably Filipino nurses. Under existing law employers, not prospective employees, apply for work permits.
"It is very difficult to switch back to a work permit. After EU enlargement it was very difficult to get an employer to apply, they thought it too much trouble," said Olga. She is highly qualified and has worked all her adult life. "I worked as a secondary teacher in Ukraine, teaching languages and cultural studies," she said. "But here even a translation agency did not want to apply for a permit."
Olga and her husband have applied to the Department of Justice to bring their children here under the family reunification provisions. But they were rejected because her husband's income was not sufficient to support them. They see their children, now 13 and 15, for two weeks once a year. Otherwise they keep in touch through letters and phone calls.
"I send clothes and sometimes I ask if they have been good boys and I send them computer games," she said.
While being able to work would bring up the family income, and allow for the family to be reunited, Olga wants to work for her own sanity as well.
She does a lot of voluntary work with the Migrant Rights Centre, translating for Russian and Ukrainian speakers and helping with the centre's outreach work.
A lot of women in her situation do such voluntary work, according to Helen Lowry, a community worker with the centre. "As an organisation we have come across a lot of people on spouse dependant visas who are becoming deskilled and marginalised, including within the family," she said. "This happens where the husband is learning English and the wife isn't. It will have huge repercussions for integration for families. These women are isolated in the family home.
"A lot of these women have qualifications and skills. I've come across an accountant working as a cleaner. This woman has an employer who wants to employ her as a book-keeper, but can't."