Immigrants are being prevented from bringing over their families, even though they can support them, writes Kitty Holland.
Olga Dubyna had to make a choice: which of her two children she would apply to have join her new life in Ireland. Having been refused in her application to have both her sons come here, she is now applying for just one.
From the Ukraine, the 43-year-old single mother came here in 2001. She had been earning $30 a month as a secondary school teacher in Kiev when she replied to an ad from an Irish recruitment agency.
"I got a job in a fish factory in Finglas, as a general operative," she says. She left her two children, Leo, then aged 11, and Anotoliy, then aged 9, with her parents.
"In Ireland I was able to earn €300 a week. It was an amazing amount of money," she enthuses. "When I left my children they did not have clothes for the winter, or good shoes. The first time I sent €300 home, my mother told me they went straight out and bought jackets and boots for the children. They were the happiest she had ever seen them. I was happy. I was looking forward to bringing them to live with me here."
Though eligible to apply to bring her children to Ireland one year after her arrival, she first applied in 2004 having been told she would need substantial savings to qualify. She had saved almost €20,000 and was confident of success.
"They [ Department of Justice] refused because I did not show enough finances. But how much should I have? What is the criteria? I do not know."
She appealed and was again refused. She has now applied again, but this time just for Leo. "I am hoping that maybe they will let me if it is just one." If she is successful she will then apply for Anotoliy.
She has been back once to see them, last year. When asked what it was like to leave them, she says: "It is awful". Her voice trails as she wipes tears from her cheeks. Swallowing hard she adds, "It is very difficult."
Asked what she will do if she is again refused, she says she doesn't know. She cannot give them the life they have grown used to if she returns to Kiev, and she has built a life here for them.
Olga's case is one of hundreds that come to the attention of such organisations as the Migrant Rights Centre (MRC) and the Immigration Council of Ireland (ICI) every year.
"It is the one issue that people, once they get here, want sorted out quickly," says Siobhán O'Donoghue, director of the MRC. "But there is no transparency around the criteria necessary for having visa applications approved. There is a total lack of information."
Ravi Shukler from India, who manages the Chandni Indian restaurant in Ballsbridge, Dublin, has been in the Republic on a work permit since 2003. With savings of €30,000, a €480 per week job and free accommodation, he has applied three times to have his wife Manta, son Aviral (4) and daughter Vanshika (2) join him. He has been refused twice and is awaiting a decision on his third application. The only reason he has been given is "finances".
"I cannot understand it. It is so upsetting because I do not know what I have done wrong. My status is legal. I have plenty of money to support my family. It seems I am dealing with an infrastructure with no systems in place."
The Department of Justice would not comment on individual cases.
"The whole area of family reunification, especially for migrants on work permits as opposed to those with working visas, is one which we must, must see properly addressed in the forthcoming legislation," says O'Donoghue. "It is absolutely unacceptable for us to have migrants working here, clearly investing in this country and contributing to it through their work and their taxes, when they are not allowed to have their families here with them."
THE DEPARTMENT IS currently receiving submissions on the "forthcoming legislation" - the Immigration and Residence Bill - due for publication in the autumn. It, and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment's Employment Permits Bill - also due to be published in the autumn - will represent the most comprehensive statement of Ireland's immigration policy since the Aliens Act of 1935.
Some 100,000 people have come to this country, for employment purposes alone, from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) since 2000. As the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, puts it in his foreword to his Department's discussion document on the Bill: "Ireland has become one of the most desirable places in the world in which to live and work."
With economic success has come enormous demand for workers. The CSO predicts the economy will need some 50,000 immigrants a year over the next decade to maintain economic growth at about six per cent a year. The Minister continues in his foreword: "In order to maximise the benefits of diversity, migration needs to be managed and proper structures and procedures need to be established."
There are concerns, however, about the Department's proposals. These are numerous and complex, though overall is a sense that the legislation will not represent a thorough overhaul of the immigration system - a system which the Immigrant and Minority Ethnic Led Organisations (IMELO), an umbrella group formed in response to the planned legislation and which represents 26 ethnic minority groups, describes as "a warren of one-off schemes and single-issue legislation, lacking clear standards and guidelines".
This experience of the system as a complex "warren" is as applicable to the immigrant restaurant manager seeking family reunification, as it is to the trainee doctor seeking an exit and re-entry visa to sit an exam in Britain or the South African farm labourer seeking an extension to their right to stay in Ireland after escaping an exploitative employer.
Again and again in the Department of Justice's discussion document, it is proposed issues will be dealt with in "secondary legislation" and it is stated that the Bill "will respect the principle of Ministerial discretion".
The IMELO says in its submission: "The structural defects in the immigration system are scarcely addressed in the Government's proposals which depend greatly on ministerial discretion and unspecified secondary legislation." Immigrants will remain, it says, "in limbo in the current system waiting for a trickle of one-off schemes that might take years to implement and would be subject to variations in the political climate".
SIPTU AND THE Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) have particular concerns about the work permits system and the continued potential for exploitation when permits are issued to the employer rather than the worker. The worker is effectively tied to the employer if they want to stay in the State. The ICTU is not convinced this will be properly addressed in the Employment Permits Bill. While the worker will now "hold" the permit, the permit must still be applied for by the employer, and the permit is still tied to that employer.
Perhaps ironically, immigrant support groups and the Immigration Control Platform agree when they both say at the heart of immigration policy should be a concern for social cohesion.
"We do not pursue a zero immigration policy," says Áine Ní Chonaill, chairperson of the ICP. "But Ireland is a society, not just an economy, and long-term concerns about the desirable level of immigration and social cohesion must weigh heavily on Government."
While the ICP calls for stringent controls, others say Ireland must face up to the fact that immigrants will want to build lives here. If social cohesion is to be achieved we must treat them "as human beings, not just units of labour", says Denise Charlton, director of the Immigrant Council of Ireland. If controls fail to recognise their human needs, social alienation and a two-tier society are the inevitable results.
At a conference in Dublin last month, US Senator Bruce Morrison said attempts to fudge the issue and "pretend" that immigrants are here only temporarily would "create disaster". Urging the Government to introduce a Green card system, enabling immigrants to live here permanently, he said to do otherwise would create "ghettos" of undocumented immigrants and social division.
Both the Department of Justice and the Department of Enterprise say all concerns will be taken on board over the next few months as the Bills are drafted.
Back in Chandni restaurant in Ballsbridge, Ravi speaks wistfully of his brother's recent emigration from India to Australia. A software engineer, it took him two months to process an application to have his wife and two children join him.
"The system was so clear that they were even told how much luggage they were allowed to bring with them - 160 kilos each. I was telling him about my situation, and you know what he said? He said professionals should think twice about going to Ireland. He is right. We come here to work, but why do we work?" he asks. "For our families. If we can't have them with us what is the point of it?"