Business representatives are concerned that plans by the authorities to display on the Internet details of employers hiring low-skilled immigrant workers could make them the targets of racists and extremists.
The Irish Business and Employers' Confederation (IBEC) says it is worried that extremists opposed to foreign workers could victimise employers who would be publicly seen to have recruited non-nationals. The concerns come in advance of the planned publication of names of employers who have foreign workers on work permits on their payrolls on the website of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
Some 40,000 work permits were issued to employers last year for staff working largely in the service sector and catering in Dublin and the regions, as well as agriculture and fisheries.
Information on how many work permits are held by each employer are due to be made publicly available from next month in what the Department says is a bid to contribute to freedom of information and help combat illegal employment. The names of all applicants for work permits are also due to be posted on the website.
IBEC's director of social policy, Ms Jackie Harrison, said that she had reservations about the move, which the confederation has not been consulted about. She pointed out that some people had extreme views, adding: "My main concern is that it could cause problems in terms of racism or victimisation."
Ms Harrison said that she was not advocating a closed system, but that information could be made available "on a need-to-know basis". She said that she had heard about the initiative in passing and would be interested in knowing the reasons for it.
She said: "This is an emotive issue and we saw that prior to the last election. There are people who feel very strongly about foreign workers, as they would see it, taking Irish people's jobs. If they were to launch a picket on an organisation, in terms of people coming to the country to work, that's not the message we want to send to them."
Ms Harrison said that she would be expressing her reservations to the Department.
A Department source said that no personal information about employees or commercially-sensitive information about employers would be published. The move was aimed at enhanced transparency in the area and would also help to cut down on illegal employment, as it would be easy to establish how many foreign workers were legally working for an employer.
It is understood that trade unions have been expressing concerns to the Department about "labour substitution" - the displacement of Irish workers in favour of non-nationals.
While the website initiative is not believed to be a direct response to these concerns, it is understood that it is aimed at helping to address irrational concerns by making the area more transparent.
The authorities do not willingly facilitate labour substitution, and employers seeking to recruit workers under the work permit scheme are obliged to establish that they could not find an Irish or EEA national for the job.