More than 2,000 asylum-seekers will be allowed work in the State while their applications to remain are processed following a Government decision which ends a long-running dispute between the Government parties on the issue.
The Government has chosen last Monday, July 26th, as the cut-off date. Any asylum seeker who has entered the State and applied for asylum before that date can work, once he or she has been waiting for a decision for 12 months. The Department of Justice estimates this will allow between 2,000 and 3,000 to seek work.
But applicants arriving after last Monday will be barred from working. Up to 6,000 asylum-seekers in the State are awaiting a decision, with new applications coming at a rate of 300 to 350 a month. The current waiting time for a new application to be processed is over 12 months, but the Government hopes to reduce this period to six months.
This week's decision follows discussions between the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, and the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, who have publicly disagreed on the issue for more than a year. Mr O'Donoghue has opposed giving the right to work to asylum-seekers while Ms Harney and the Minister of State, Ms Liz O'Donnell, have backed the campaign to allow them to work.
Mr O'Donoghue said last year Ireland already had a generous regime for asylum-seekers and was, therefore, attracting a disproportionate number of foreigners seeking refugee status.
"Giving a right to work would simply create another `pull' factor which would put further pressure on the asylum-processing system and continue to delay recognition for genuine refugees in need of protection," he said.
Last March, in a three-hour discussion, the Cabinet failed to agree proposals put by Tanaiste, Ms Harney that asylum-seekers be allowed to work after six months awaiting a decision.
At her party conference the following month she again said she wanted asylum-seekers to be allowed work.
The Fine Gael deputy leader, Mrs Nora Owen, last night welcomed the decision but asked for more details, such as whether there would be a limit on the duration of work permits and whether they would remain valid after asylum status was refused.
Labour's justice spokeswoman, Ms Jan O'Sullivan, asked where Mr O'Donoghue's objections to this proposal, stated as recently as last month during the Committee Stage debate on the Immigration Bill, stood now.
"If they are not valid now, why were they valid then? The Government has quite rightly given a serious rap on the knuckles to the Minister."
The 12-month period that must elapse before asylum-seekers have the right to work is longer than the six months proposed by Tanaiste Ms Harney and the three months proposed by the Labour Party during last month's debate on the Immigration Bill.
However, it represents a major departure from the long-held position of Mr O'Donoghue that asylum-seekers should not be allowed to work at all.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice said last night that both Mr O'Donoghue and Ms Harney were happy with the new agreed rules.
Less than a month ago Mr O'Donoghue rejected an amendment to the Immigration Bill which would have given asylum-seekers who had been in the State for three months the right to work.
In a separate move to tackle particular skills shortages, the Government is to allow people from non-EU countries to take up unfilled jobs in the State.