The Government must not allow migrants to take the blame if it announces cuts to social welfare payments in the upcoming Budget, the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI) has said.ICI chief Denise Charlton warned that any cut in social welfare should not be linked to negative rhetoric about migrants accessing benefits.
Charlton was speaking in the lead-up to the Global Forum on Migration and Development, which is being held in Athens this week.
She said: “Recently, we have witnessed the release of statistics about the numbers of migrants receiving social welfare and even breakdowns of statistics by nationality of who is receiving various types of social welfare.
“There has also been increased rhetoric about unemployed migrants staying in Ireland because social welfare payments are higher here than in other countries.”
Charlton continued: “This sort of rhetoric is disturbing and unfortunate and is a denial of the reality that immigration is a permanent phenomenon in this country. Many migrants are staying in Ireland during this recession because this is now their home.
“And if a person is entitled to receive social welfare in Ireland, then where they were born is irrelevant.
Charlton said the ICI “would be very concerned if a perception were allowed to grow that migrants are somehow responsible for the strain on our social welfare system. Our social welfare system is under strain because of the dire state of our economy and the enormous financial pressures people are experiencing.”
She pointed out that a number of work sectors with higher proportions of migrants, such as construction, manufacturing, hospitality, wholesale and retail had been among those “hardest hit by the downturn”.
Charlton added that European Commission statistics show that, of all EU countries, Ireland has the second highest proportion of its population living in other Member States (8.2 per cent).
Around one-fifth of people on the dole are believed to be non-Irish nationals.
