“Care is what we do – so let us care for our families”

Representatives of Unite the union, Migrant Rights Centre Ireland and Migrant Nurses Ireland today (Wednesday) spoke at an Oireachtas briefing hosted by Ruth Coppinger TD to outline workers’ demands for reform of Department of Justice rules which can see migrant Health Care Assistants (HCAs) and other employment permit holders separated from their families for years.

Current rules stipulate that general employment holders must wait for 12 months before applying to bring over their family.  A minimum gross income of €30,000 in the two years preceding the application is required for a worker to bring their spouse to Ireland. Additional thresholds require a minimum household net income of €36,660 to bring one child to the state, €41,912 for two children and €47,164 for three children, with further higher thresholds for additional children.

Migrant HCAs on new contracts currently earn €30,000, slightly above the full-time minimum wage of approximately €27,400.

Unite regional officer Michael O’Brien said:

“The arbitrary waiting times and onerous income thresholds that are keeping migrant HCAs and many other migrant workers from their families must be scrapped. The government expects many Irish and EU families to survive on the minimum wage.  Yet they are saying that HCAs cannot raise their families on an income exceeding the minimum wage.  We need to end low pay for all workers, and we also need to end discrimination between families.”

Workers are asking Oireachtas members to press the government to end the obligatory waiting period before an application can be made and to abolish the income thresholds for family reunification so that any employment permit holder in full-time work is eligible to apply for family reunification.

Neil Bruton, co-director of Migrant Rights Centre Ireland, said

“Nobody should have to choose between providing for their family and actually being with them. The minister for justice has the power to reunite families by scrapping these deeply unjust rules and enabling all full-time workers to have their family with them from the start. A review has been promised for over two years. People can’t wait any longer, they need change now.”

Somy Thomas of Migrant Nurses Ireland said:

“We call on Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan to publish his department’s review of the family reunification regulations. We have witnessed over the last number of years the stress and unhappiness that is caused by the separation of colleagues from their families. This is a right that other categories of migrant worker already enjoy. We are just asking for fairness and consistency.”