The Government's decision to restrict access to Bulgarian and Romanian workers after their countries join the EU next year is justified, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Michael Martin has said.
Speaking after yesterday's Cabinet meeting, Mr Martin said the number of foreign workers in Ireland had jumped dramatically since 1999, and now accounted for 10 per cent of the workforce.
"The numbers have been extraordinary. This is one of the most rapid inward migrations ever experienced by any country. Other countries have taken 30 or 40 years to reach that point."
Though self-employed workers from both countries will not be subject to restrictions as of now, further talks will be held with the Irish Congress of Trades Unions (Ictu) to ensure that immigrants do not fraudulently describe themselves as self-employed to gain entry to Ireland.
The Government, Mr Martin said, did not want to do anything that would undermine labour standards or wage rates in the construction industry where the use of self-employed sub-contractors is increasingly common.
Mr Martin acknowledged that the Bulgarian and Romanian governments would not be "happy" about the decisions made by the Irish and British governments to impose restrictions.
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said weak labour laws in the State meant that large-scale immigration had led to exploitation of some of those workers and lower wages for some Irish workers.
He said his own view had been that Ireland should impose severe restrictions on the right of people from Bulgaria and Romania to work here during the seven-year period allowed under the accession treaties.
The projections that had been offered before the 2004 enlargement for the number of people coming to work here from the 10 states that joined then were "out by a mile", he said. Given the unwillingness of other EU states to open their borders, and particularly in light of the British decision, Ireland could not adopt the same attitude as it did in 2004.
Fine Gael TD Bernard Allen said: "Fine Gael has been advancing the position that Irish labour markets should not immediately be opened to the citizens of Bulgaria and Romania, and it is welcome that this will now be the case." Ireland had benefited from the immigration that followed the last round of EU enlargement, "contributing greatly" to both our economic development and to our growing diversity.
"However, it is difficult for a small EU state such as Ireland to further open labour markets when larger EU countries still maintain the restrictions on movement they imposed more than two years ago.
"More importantly, the common travel area between the UK and Ireland would make it impossible for our State to grant unrestricted access to Bulgarian and Romanian workers while a restricted work-permit system operated in Britain".
