MAGDALENA SOBCZAK meets two men dedicated to providing the support and advice Eastern European immigrants need to start a new life in Irish society
Poles are perfect workers, it is said. You often hear about their strong work ethic, their conscientiousness, discipline, punctuality and dedication. They are not very demanding and they work hard – usually for less than the Irish would. As a community they are well organised, they help themselves and easily form networks, associations, newspapers. They do not come here for help or to abuse the Irish social system. They come to work and do not complain. What’s more – educated in Poland, they bring their skills and knowledge to an Irish market and even pay Irish taxes.
Yet this perfect bubble bursts when you know the stories of Poles who – as heard on a daily basis by Marek Czenczek from the Polish Information and Cultural Centre in Dublin and Kazik Anhalt from Siptu – face discrimination and social exclusion of their Polish expatriates. Discrimination of the Polish in Ireland is not only visible in the job market, where Poles often work long hours for the minimum wage, or less; another sign is that people work below their qualifications, that they find it difficult to obtain the good jobs, which seem to be reserved for the natives.
It seems that barriers appear even in everyday contact with institutions, and as Kazik Anhalt explains, executing the simplest rights may pose difficulties. Anhalt believes that one of the most popular issues is the difficulty in obtaining the P45 document which employers very often neglect or refuse to issue to the former employees. “There is no transparency with the issuing of the P45,” he says. “Some people are waiting for months for their P45 and have to pay emergency tax because they have no confirmation of previous employment.
“Some employers try to avoid paying taxes and so never register employees with Revenue. For the employee, it means they don’t appear in the Revenue register and, because they employer did not pay their PRSI contribution, the employee is not entitled to any social benefits – no maternity leave, pension, etc. Those immigrant workers are treated as if they had no rights and are pushed aside as second-class citizens. About 80 per cent of the phone calls I receive concern problems with social and Revenue systems. You can hardly imagine how big this problem is; my phone is always ringing.”
According to Marek Czenczek, founder and director of the Polish Centre in Dublin, his organisation was dealing with such issues but did not receive adequate funding. As a result, there is no independent Polish institution that would inform Poles about their rights and help them to deal efficiently with problems they have with other institutions.
“The Irish non-profit immigrant organisations usually do not employ Poles,” says Czenczek. “Polish workers often do not know where to go for information or help. They often don’t have sufficient language skills to go to an Irish institution and explain a complicated case. They also do not trust Irish institutions and would prefer to contact another Polish person who not only speaks the same language, but has the same mentality and can quickly grasp the gist of the problem.”
One year ago, the office of the Polish Information & Culture Centre on Dublin’s Gardiner Street was a busy drop-in one-stop shop open from noon till 8pm providing free information and advice to Polish nationals who faced difficulties in accessing services. Last December, the organisation announced that it was closing its doors to the general public due to the lack of sufficient funding to pay for rent, bills and the information workers. Yet the clients kept knocking at its door and kept sending e-mails requesting assistance and information. Because of this, Czenczek, the director of the centre, and Anhalt (a board member) did not give up the idea of a Polish information centre in Ireland.
“We are proposing establishing a Central–Eastern Euro-pean agency, a non-profit organisation that would be dedicated to information provision and integration of migrants within Irish society,” explains Anhalt.
“We are planning to create an advisory service [for a] wide-range of aspects of the socio-economic life in Ireland, including employment rights, social welfare, the tax system, health and safety, pension schemes, training, language courses and education and qualification recognition.
“Our task is intercultural co-operation and integration so naturally we want to cooperate with other Irish and non-Irish national organisations, sport clubs, societies and associations. We seek improvement through building partnerships and cross-channel cooperation which means that we are looking for exchange of experience and information with similar organisations in England, Scotland and Wales.”
On 1 May 2004, Poland was among 10 countries that became new members of the European Union. Ireland, like Great Britain and Sweden, was one of the first countries to open its labour market to Polish workers, and it goes without saying that the country has benefited from the influx of skilled migrants. But has it used the time since then to adjust itself to the new situation? Can it cater for the needs of this huge number of foreign newcomers and not only use their skills and labour, but also provide them with information, facilitate integration and help to achieve better socio-economic conditions?
“The Irish institutions have had three years since the EU enlargement in 2004 to organise themselves to provide information and assistance to Eastern European workers,” says Czenczek. “They did not manage to do that; they were not ready for the influx of such a large number of workers. We have two years of experience in information provision and each week we had hundreds of Polish clients who confused or misinformed were looking for information or assistance.”
Czenczek and Anhalt believe that running an immigrant organisation requires understanding of the specific cultural, historic and economic background of its clients.
“The cultural differences, the way of approaching life situations, are visible, and Italians, Polish, Scandinavians, Chin-ese, British and Irish [are all] characterised by a slightly different mentality,” says Anhalt. “The Irish still do not know why so many Poles came to Ireland; they do not grasp the specificity of their culture and mentality.”
“There are Polish workers who are in their fifties, mechanics, builders, welders, drivers, who will never learn good English,” says Czenczek, “At the moment they are left alone, living in their own circles, in Polish ghettos. The centre that we would like to build in Dublin would function as a social station, opening them to the larger society, inform about events, direct them to free English courses and seminars, encourage them to go out, meet people, integrate.
Yet this perfect bubble bursts when you know the stories of Poles who – as heard on a daily basis by Marek Czenczek from the Polish Information and Cultural Centre in Dublin and Kazik Anhalt from Siptu – face discrimination and social exclusion of their Polish expatriates. Discrimination of the Polish in Ireland is not only visible in the job market, where Poles often work long hours for the minimum wage, or less; another sign is that people work below their qualifications, that they find it difficult to obtain the good jobs, which seem to be reserved for the natives.
It seems that barriers appear even in everyday contact with institutions, and as Kazik Anhalt explains, executing the simplest rights may pose difficulties. Anhalt believes that one of the most popular issues is the difficulty in obtaining the P45 document which employers very often neglect or refuse to issue to the former employees. “There is no transparency with the issuing of the P45,” he says. “Some people are waiting for months for their P45 and have to pay emergency tax because they have no confirmation of previous employment.
“Some employers try to avoid paying taxes and so never register employees with Revenue. For the employee, it means they don’t appear in the Revenue register and, because they employer did not pay their PRSI contribution, the employee is not entitled to any social benefits – no maternity leave, pension, etc. Those immigrant workers are treated as if they had no rights and are pushed aside as second-class citizens. About 80 per cent of the phone calls I receive concern problems with social and Revenue systems. You can hardly imagine how big this problem is; my phone is always ringing.”
According to Marek Czenczek, founder and director of the Polish Centre in Dublin, his organisation was dealing with such issues but did not receive adequate funding. As a result, there is no independent Polish institution that would inform Poles about their rights and help them to deal efficiently with problems they have with other institutions.
“The Irish non-profit immigrant organisations usually do not employ Poles,” says Czenczek. “Polish workers often do not know where to go for information or help. They often don’t have sufficient language skills to go to an Irish institution and explain a complicated case. They also do not trust Irish institutions and would prefer to contact another Polish person who not only speaks the same language, but has the same mentality and can quickly grasp the gist of the problem.”
One year ago, the office of the Polish Information & Culture Centre on Dublin’s Gardiner Street was a busy drop-in one-stop shop open from noon till 8pm providing free information and advice to Polish nationals who faced difficulties in accessing services. Last December, the organisation announced that it was closing its doors to the general public due to the lack of sufficient funding to pay for rent, bills and the information workers. Yet the clients kept knocking at its door and kept sending e-mails requesting assistance and information. Because of this, Czenczek, the director of the centre, and Anhalt (a board member) did not give up the idea of a Polish information centre in Ireland.
“We are proposing establishing a Central–Eastern Euro-pean agency, a non-profit organisation that would be dedicated to information provision and integration of migrants within Irish society,” explains Anhalt.
“We are planning to create an advisory service [for a] wide-range of aspects of the socio-economic life in Ireland, including employment rights, social welfare, the tax system, health and safety, pension schemes, training, language courses and education and qualification recognition.
“Our task is intercultural co-operation and integration so naturally we want to cooperate with other Irish and non-Irish national organisations, sport clubs, societies and associations. We seek improvement through building partnerships and cross-channel cooperation which means that we are looking for exchange of experience and information with similar organisations in England, Scotland and Wales.”
On 1 May 2004, Poland was among 10 countries that became new members of the European Union. Ireland, like Great Britain and Sweden, was one of the first countries to open its labour market to Polish workers, and it goes without saying that the country has benefited from the influx of skilled migrants. But has it used the time since then to adjust itself to the new situation? Can it cater for the needs of this huge number of foreign newcomers and not only use their skills and labour, but also provide them with information, facilitate integration and help to achieve better socio-economic conditions?
“The Irish institutions have had three years since the EU enlargement in 2004 to organise themselves to provide information and assistance to Eastern European workers,” says Czenczek. “They did not manage to do that; they were not ready for the influx of such a large number of workers. We have two years of experience in information provision and each week we had hundreds of Polish clients who confused or misinformed were looking for information or assistance.”
Czenczek and Anhalt believe that running an immigrant organisation requires understanding of the specific cultural, historic and economic background of its clients.
“The cultural differences, the way of approaching life situations, are visible, and Italians, Polish, Scandinavians, Chin-ese, British and Irish [are all] characterised by a slightly different mentality,” says Anhalt. “The Irish still do not know why so many Poles came to Ireland; they do not grasp the specificity of their culture and mentality.”
“There are Polish workers who are in their fifties, mechanics, builders, welders, drivers, who will never learn good English,” says Czenczek, “At the moment they are left alone, living in their own circles, in Polish ghettos. The centre that we would like to build in Dublin would function as a social station, opening them to the larger society, inform about events, direct them to free English courses and seminars, encourage them to go out, meet people, integrate.
“We want to assist them with solving their problems – also psychological or alcohol-related problems – and we have already established co-operation with Polish psychologists in Ireland.”
Immigrants now constitute about one-tenth of the Irish population. There are over 340,000 Eastern Europeans in Ireland today, and yet there is no centre that can deal with them and provide information and support in their own languages. So how can we talk about social inclusion here?
“Our mission in the Polish Centre was always to provide the highest quality professional information service to the Polish nationals in Ireland in the Polish language and promote integration of the Poles within the multicultural Irish society,” says Czenczek.
“Yes, we Poles have plenty of ideas, energy and creativity, and it’s true that we can organise ourselves, but we can’t cope without the support of the Irish Governmental and non-governmental institutions. We cannot run a centre which would cater for the needs of thousands of Poles and other Europeans on a shoestring and without proper funding. We can do a lot but we can’t do it alone.”
