There is a resistance at Government level to protecting the rights of immigrant workers, the president of the Human Rights Commission has said.
Mr Maurice Manning was speaking on the publication of a report yesterday, written jointly with the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI), which says existing policies to safeguard the rights of migrant workers and their families here are "deficient and lacking in scope".
The report, Safeguarding the rights of Migrant Workers and their Families, says the most relevant piece of international human rights legislation, the International Convention on the Protection of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (ICPMWF), has not been ratified here.
"We ask why and will keep on asking why, we have been so slow to ratify it," said Mr Manning. "It is not as if the Government has not been reminded often enough." He said the Commission and the NCCRI were also concerned "about the inadequacy of enforcement as far as existing labour rights are concerned".
There were just 20 labour standards inspectors nationwide and rogue employers were going to continue getting away with exploitation and worse as long as there were so few inspectors.
"We do not want to see here a repetition of what happened to the unfortunate Chinese migrant workers whose lives were so irresponsibly thrown away in Morecambe just a month ago. No one thought such a thing was possible in England - but it was. What makes us so different?"
The ICPMWF protects the civil and political rights of all migrant workers, whether documented or not. These rights include the right to life, the right to freedom from torture and the right to freedom of expression. It provides further protection for documented migrant workers, including equal employment rights as nationals of the country in relation to education and health services, the right to family reunification and the right to stay on in a country and seek alternative employment or training for as long as their permit allows, if their original job is terminated.
At the very least, migrant workers' applications for family reunification should be processed more quickly and in a more humane way, said Mr Manning.
He called on the Government to ratify the ICPMWF as a demonstration of leadership on this issue during the Irish EU presidency.
Among the report's recommendations are that:
• protections afforded to migrant workers be enhanced;
• enforcement bodies be given adequate resources to protect and offer redress to migrant workers;
• Ireland ratifies the ICPMWF;
• labour migration policy be underpinned with reference to international human rights standards.
The report concludes: "It is imperative Ireland now constructs a comprehensive policy that includes a strong focus on the rights of migrant workers and their families based on international human rights."
