Update: Work Permits – Justice and Equality 16th October, 2014

 
  *  To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the extent to which she continues to monitor the situation affecting a number of holders of work permits who have resided and have been employed here for several years most often in the same employment, but whose work permits were not renewed regularly but were given the impression that their documents were in order and who now find themselves deemed to be ineligible for residency and are deemed to have been illegally in this country; if she will examine such cases as a matter of urgency, consider each on their own merit and make the necessary provisions to ensure that such issues are addressed; and if she will make a statement on the matter.

                                            – Bernard J. Durkan

 
REPLY.

In order to monitor a situation where people have had Work Permits but then find themselves undocumented, such persons must make themselves known to the bodies concerned.  An administrative scheme was introduced in 2009 by my Department to address the problem of those who found themselves undocumented through no particular fault of their own. This scheme ran for 3 months and those concerned were encouraged to apply to the Irish Naturalisation Immigration Service in order to regularise their situation.  By the end of 2009 when the scheme closed around 200 applications had been submitted and determined.

Following on from that, the recently implemented new Employment Permits (Amendment) Act 2014 has introduced on a statutory footing  a new  Employment Permit type, the “Reactivation Employment Permit”, which will address this  situation  i.e where non-EEA nationals who entered the labour market legally on foot of an employment permit but have now fallen out of the Employment Permits regime.  

Clearly, all illegal immigrant cases are not the same and must be dealt with on a case by case basis taking account of individual circumstances.   At one end of the scale are those where the person’s illegal status is through no fault of their own and indeed the Department continues to deal with cases of this nature in a sympathetic way  on an ongoing basis.  However there are also much more egregious instances of immigration abuse, often at considerable expense to the State and it does not follow that such persons should profit from their conduct.   All cases  will be  dealt with on their merits.