This article is from page 20 of the 2008-11-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 20 JPG
POLES and other non-nationals who came to Clare with great hopes of the Celtic Tiger are heading home.
While many are leaving because they find it difficult to get jobs, re- ports are emerging of non-nationals being let go out of turn while Irish employees are being kept.
Orla Ni Eili of the Immigrant Sup- port Centre in Ennis says that she has heard reports of foreign nationals be-
ing let go in this way.
“These are not formal complaints, but we have heard about it. A number of foreign nationals working in the country have said they were let go despite the fact that there were Irish people employed after them.”
Ms Ni Eili said she has been trying to get people to tell her which em- ployers are using this practice “but I haven’t been able to find out. I im- agine it’s because people feel quite powerless in these situations”.
The claims come as Mayor of Clare, Madeleine Taylor Quinn stresses that “people must be treated equally, re- gardless of their nationality”’.
She was addressing last week’s Polish Independence Day celebra- tions in Kilrush. The recession, she said, “is areal test of our society; how genuine we are in difficult times”.
At the height of the building boom, there were 2,000 Polish people living in Kilrush and surrounding areas, the Mayor said, but she added that figure
has since dwindled. Ms Ni Eli has anoticed a big rise in the number of foreign nationals eager to repatriate.
“A lot have gone and others are planning to go after Christmas. I think it’s the case that immigra- tion to Ireland was a chain process, where people who came here and found work was plentiful told their friends and family at home. Now that scenario 1s working in the opposite way, she said.
Lithuanian state agencies targeted
fellow citizens working in Ireland with jobs fairs in Dublin and Mona- ghan at the weekend.
The events were being hosted by the by the Lithuanian Ministry of Social Security and Labour under the title ‘Saddle Up Your Horses’.
“With the Irish jobs market shrink- ing, many Lithuanians are consider- ing the option of returning home. Three thousand job vacancies were on offer,” a spokesman for the event said.