Script:
In Dublin’s fair city women, still sell seafood on the street, like the famous Molly Malone of the song. But take a look at the customers.
After centuries of emigration, Ireland has become – in just over a decade - a country of immigration. Now one in ten workers are non-Irish and some are returning Irish like Bob Kelly.
Bob Kelly, TV Presenter
On a very basic level you walk down the street and you see different people, different coloured skins, people of all shapes and sizes and then you see the shops, you see what people are eating what people are doing, you know, you see multiculturalism.
Bob produces a TV programme that looks at where the new wave of migrant workers came from and what they are doing in Ireland.
Here he found Latvians, Lithuanians, and Russians, working in a mushroom farm for low pay.
According to a new report from the International Labour Organisation, migrant workers often find themselves concentrated in so-called 3D jobs: dirty, dangerous and degrading, where workers are open to exploitation.
Siobhan O’Donoghue, Migrant Rights Centre, Ireland
I think the employment in the mushroom sector is a very good example of the whole area of discrimination and of racism. It’s predominantly now migrant workers who work in the mushroom industry. It’s a very isolated kind of type of work.
Terms and conditions vary for the different nationalities, depending on residency status. Work permits are usually issued for only one year. Workers with newly-acquired EU citizenship, such as Poles, have the advantage.
And the Poles have come in numbers, more than 20 000 last year (2006) alone. They share a similar culture and the Catholic religion. So far they and other migrant workers have received a warm welcome.
Tony Killeen, Minister for Labour Affairs
There’ve been a few isolated occasions when people have raised issues and sought to frighten people but there has been a strong political consensus that is positive towards migrant workers in this country and well-deserved on the part of migrant workers since they work hard and we have the job opportunities for them and we can only continue our economic growth if we have people to do the jobs.
Tony Donahoe, IBEC
Business is changing at a rapid rate. The types of skills that are coming in, or are required, are changing as well, specifically around IT, but also sectoral skills in the construction sector for example, there were a lot of constraints there. In the hotel catering trade there were constraints there. It wasn’t just a case of skills, it was also labour shortages.
Manuela Tomei, ILO Expert on Discrimination
The most essential thing in order to protect someone from discrimination is having the right laws in place. But laws per se are not sufficient, are not enough. They need to be known.
Unemployment in Ireland is relatively low, at four and a half per cent. But there’s a growing debate about what would happen in the event of a downturn in the economy. Unions stress the need to work on behalf of all workers.
David Begg, General Secretary, Irish Congress of Trade Unions
We set out at the very beginning to say that the purpose of our campaigning was to prevent exploitation of the migrant workers and also to protect the conditions of employment of the indigenous working population so I mean we didn’t differentiate between the two and in that way, hopefully, prevented any sort of activity towards the newcomers to the country.
A bridge to the global financial system, the newcomers have become a vital part of the Irish economy.