WORK PERMIT fees should be abolished for non-EU migrants on the dole, Fine Gael’s immigration spokesman has said.
Denis Naughten TD claimed that the Government’s failure to do so is costing the economy some €200m per annum in social welfare payments and lost tax.
Just over 10,000 work-permit-holding migrants are among the over 320,000 people now on the live register. Nearly 65,000 of this total are non-Irish nationals.
Fine Gael’s Naughten has said that scrapping the permit fee for those on the dole would save the Government money.
“While migrants make up only a very small percentage of the overall unemployment figures, the work permit barrier is forcing them to remain on the live register at an estimated cost of €20,000 per person per year,” he commented.
“At present, employers are not prepared to pay the required fees of €500 for a six-month work permit, and many on the live register do not have the resources to pay the fee either.”
He added that as work permit holders make up 1.5 per cent of the workforce, the move would have “a limited impact” on the number of available jobs.
In Ireland, a non-EU migrant can only fill a vacancy if efforts are first made to employ an EU citizen.
If a person employed on a work permit loses his/her job, they may qualify for a jobseekers’ payment for the unexpired period of their work permit. The maximum length of a jobseekers’ claim is 15 months where that claim was made prior to 15 October 2008.
At the end of January, there were 6,507 jobseekers’ benefit and 3,543 jobseekers’ all-owance claimants on the live register from non-EU countries.
The biggest national groups issued work permits during 2008 were from India (3,334) and the Philippines (2,210).
In February, two Fianna Fáil TDs, Ned O’Keeffe and Noel O’Flynn, called for Minister for Enterprise Mary Coughlan to review the issuing of work permits, given the current economic situation.
