Sir, – People Before Profit (PBP) has proposed a Bill to grant the right to work to all international protection applicants from the date of their arrival in the State. While well intentioned, this is another example of a proposed policy having unintended consequences, as I would argue that while there are many push factors sending people out of their countries (war, famine, persecution, poverty and corrupt politics to name a few), the pull factors that draw people to our island in the Atlantic need to be examined.
At present international protection applicants are heading to Ireland at a higher per capita rate than elsewhere in the EU because of the slowness of asylum processing here (mainly due to three separate processes being involved before a claim is rejected, as it is in 60 per cent of all cases), as well as the right to work after five months. There is growing evidence that an increasing number of claimants are arriving from the UK after their visas have expired there (including some of the recent Jordanian and Palestinian cohort) as they realise that return to UK is highly unlikely and our current booming economy has better employment prospects than a return to their home countries.
In a nutshell, all the PBP proposal is likely to do is pull in more applicants to our already overwhelmed asylum process as well as undermine our existing work permit and visa processes which are there for a reason. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL FLYNN,
Bayside,
Dublin 13.