GETTING HIS Leaving Certificate results this week was a bittersweet moment for Fernando Da Silva, the 19-year-old son of a Brazilian meat worker living in Tullamore.
He scored 305 points, which should be enough to enable him to win a place on his first choice course – computer and networking at Carlow Institute of Technology.
But like hundreds of other children of non-EU migrant workers living in the Republic, Fernando won’t be able to go on to third-level education due to very restrictive immigration laws.
His father came to work at a local meat factory eight years ago during the height of the Celtic Tiger economy. Fernando, who now speaks with a broad Irish accent, followed a year later and entered the Irish school system.
Current immigration rules do not pass on the long-term residency rights accrued by migrant workers from non-EU states to their children. This means they are often categorised as foreign students and must pay college fees up to three times the normal rate.
“My dad simply can’t afford it. I would have to pay international fees that are very expensive and I can’t get a grant,” says Fernando.
“It’s very difficult. I worked very hard for my Leaving and now I feel like I am hitting a brick wall.”
Helen Lowry, community work co-ordinator at the Migrants Rights Centre Ireland, says the rules cause heartache for hundreds of families, who have made their homes in Ireland and paid their taxes into the exchequer.
“The centre feels strongly that the current situation is actively undermining the integration process and could potentially lead to the creation of an ‘immigrant underclass’ in Irish society.”
“I know a family where the parents are paying for two children to go to college but the third child has been told they can’t afford to send him,” says Rudy Montejo, a former president of the Filipino community organisation in Bray.
“Our children are not international students, they live in Ireland. You shouldn’t invite migrants to work and then set up no support system for their children,” he said.
Fernando says he isn’t going to give up on his college dreams. But unless a college grants him a scholarship, his chances of getting a third-level education are limited.