HAVING PLAYED a vital role in powering the economic boom, immigrants are bearing some of the worst effects of its unravelling. There were 71,716 foreign nationals on the Live Register in February, a startling rise of 141 per cent in just 12 months and far higher than the rate of increase among the Irish-born population. While they represent an estimated 16 per cent of labour force members aged between 17 and 65, foreign nationals now account for 20.2 per cent of names on the register. Signs of deepening hardship also reveal themselves in figures showing immigrants accounted for 38 per cent of rough sleepers in Dublin last year.
Whether one is from Galway or Gdansk, the stress and anxiety of losing a job is no different. But such figures, suggesting immigrants may stand to lose disproportionately from the recession, pose a discrete set of questions for the Government. Across the world, recessions are believed to have a more severe impact on newcomers than on natives. This is largely because immigrants tend to be disproportionately low-skilled and many of them are not eligible for benefits. With that in mind, the availability of targeted, accessible re-training schemes will be vital in assisting those low-skilled workers who have lost their jobs. And the discretion with which officials can make decisions on the habitual residence condition, which limits access to social welfare within two years of arrival, must be used sensibly to ensure that deserving applicants are not left at risk of poverty.
A striking aspect of the Irish migration story has been that our immigrants are a remarkably educated group. An attainment gap has persisted, however, and now it is more vital than ever to ensure that newcomers are given every chance to aspire to jobs that fully reflect their education level. The provision of language training and the system for recognising qualifications attained overseas will play a pivotal role.
Such measures come under the broad rubric of integration policy, but instead of intensifying its actions in this area, the Government has left the impression of hard-won gains being chipped away. The relatively small budget of the Office of the Minister for Integration has been cut by a quarter, the State’s advisory body on intercultural affairs has been closed and more than 500 teachers who provide language support to newcomer children are to lose their jobs. Minister for Integration Conor Lenihan says measures to avert social fractures are most important during a recession. If the Government agrees, it has a strange way of showing it.