MIGRANT professionals made redundant are facing jobless futures in Ireland due to inflexible employment rules, the Philippines’ consul has said.According to John Ferris, a large proportion of civil engineers from the Philippines have been made redundant and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is “reluctant” to let them downgrade from green cards (which cover high-skilled jobs) to work permits, issued for lower-skilled employment.
Around 30 Filipino civil engineers have been working in Ireland but approximately 70 per cent have lost their jobs in the recent economic downturn, said Ferris. He added that a high proportion of them are married to nurses, also from the Philippines, and should be able to use spousal permit rights to job-search across sectors. However, a number of them are in Ireland alone and cannot do so.
Ferris said that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, which regulates both systems, is “reluctant” to allow green card holders to move their employment permission to the work permit system. In both the green card and work permit spheres, employment permission is only granted when a job offer is secured.
A spokesperson for the department confirmed to Metro Éireann that people on green cards, who are subsequently made redundant, are not automatically entitled to work permits.
“Ireland’s green card scheme was introduced specifically for occupations where high level strategic skills shortages exist in this country. This ensures that we are in a position to attract the highly skilled people we need to move our economy to a new level – one which will generate high-value jobs into the future.”
The spokesperson continued: “Holders of green cards are allowed enter the Irish labour market and to bring their spouse and dependents to live in Ireland, solely on the basis that they have a specific skill which is not available to Irish employers from within the EEA (European Economic Area).
“Once this condition no longer exists, it is not appropriate to simply allow a green card holder to automatically take up lower skilled and lower paid employment elsewhere in the labour market.”
