{"id":142169,"date":"2025-11-16T02:16:30","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T02:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/142169\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T02:16:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T02:16:30","slug":"wrc-report-casts-light-on-migrant-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/142169\/","title":{"rendered":"WRC report casts light on migrant economy\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Annual Report<\/a> for 2025 from the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) details inspections and violations and cases taken for the year 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unlike the previous report for 2023 it does not specifically give a figure for the number of breaches of work permits legislation, but the report emphasizes that these constituted a significant number of the violations uncovered through inspections.<\/p>\n

Given that 293 explicit breaches were reported in 2023, and that complaints about work permits violations accounted for over one third of all calls to the WRC helpline in 2024, it might be surmised that this is a growing feature of non-compliance with labour legislation.<\/p>\n

There is no specific mention of these, or of other violations regarding pay, working time etc, in connection with the huge rise in the number of work\u00a0 permits being withdrawn (as I reported<\/a> a short time ago) and the WRC did not respond to my request regarding the reasons for that significant increase.<\/p>\n

Of the breaches of permits regulations that were found and turn up in WRC adjudications among the violations discovered were persons employed without any permit being issued; the facilitation of \u201cirregular migration\u201d by employers; salaries; and the actual work being carried out by persons who were issued with a Critical Skills permit but who were working in other roles which are excluded.<\/p>\n

One example of this came before the WRC adjudicators in August 2024 and June this year. It was taken by an Indian national, Amandeep Kaur, against a company called Concored which has the franchise for a number of the small supermarkets under the Gala and Londis brands. Concored is entirely owned by Pardeep Hooda.<\/p>\n

Amandeep Kaur complained that while she had been issued with a Critical Skills permit as a business sales executive that she had been employed by Concored at a Gala shop at Oola, County Limerick in a range of retail roles including serving customers and packing shelves which are not covered by the Employment Permit Act.<\/p>\n

She also claimed that while her contract was for an annual salary of \u20ac35,000 \u2013 which is the threshold for her job spec \u2013 that she was only paid just over \u20ac28,300 for a year. She also claimed that she had worked for the company from October 2022 whereas the permit was only valid from January 30, 2023.<\/p>\n

The Department of Enterprise (DETE) had contacted Concored in December 2023 regarding their employment of people with Critical Skills permits and the status of visas for those persons. Kaur claimed that she was sacked because she would not comply with her employer\u2019s instruction to support their response to the DETE queries.<\/p>\n

The WRC did not find in favour of the complainant regarding the permit as the Adjudicator\u2019s report stated that \u201cWhether the Complainant worked in a critical skills role is not for assessment by the Adjudicator.\u201d\u00a0 He did find for her in regard to some complaints regarding wages and working hours.<\/p>\n

Most of the complaints regarding work permits related to food, retail and agriculture. The seriousness of some of these is indicated by the fact that the Garda\u00ed were involved in over 300 joint inspections with the WRC in 2024.<\/p>\n

Two thirds of cases concerning breaches of work permits legislation were in the food sector. Other areas in which irregularities were found included \u2018hair and beauty.\u2019 The WRC refer to the prevalence of abuses related to migrant workers \u2013 sometimes with reference to \u201cunregulated\u201d or \u201cirregular\u201d patterns \u2013 not just in regard to permits but in all areas such as wages, hours, contracts and so on.<\/p>\n

That can be seen in some of the headline cases that have come before the WRC and which have been reported in the media including Gript. A common feature<\/a> has been that both the employer and the employee are from the same country and in some cases quite likely from the same part of that country.<\/p>\n

Which highlights the extent to which there is almost a separate and distinct migrant economy which is much more difficult to monitor and regulate. The growing prevalence of smaller companies \u2013 although some are not so small \u2013 which are owned by migrants and which overwhelmingly employ migrants can be seen through a search of companies in particular sectors which were granted permits in 2024.<\/p>\n

Last year, over 150 small companies whose names and searches would indicate are involved in what is generally known as \u2018fast\u2019 or \u2018takeaway\u2019 food were issued with permits. There is some crossover as searches for \u2018takeaway\u2019 or \u2018pizza\u2019 or \u2018kebab\u2019 sometimes bring up the same outlet, but that only accounts for a small number.<\/p>\n

The important point to bear in mind is that, as officially stated by the Department, that under the current legislation: \u201cIn general, occupations connected to restaurants and take-aways are currently ineligible<\/a> for Critical Skills, General, Intra-Company Transfer and Contract for Services Employment Permits.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only exceptions are \u201cexecutive chef, head chef, sous chef, chef de partie or commis chef\u201d who \u201cmay be considered for a Critical Skills, General or Intra-Company Transfer Employment Permit.\u201d However, even for those categories where an offer of employment is made, confirmation is required that the \u201cforeign national in respect of whom the application is made shall be employed in an establishment other than a fast food outlet.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, even on the off chance that the chap carving the lamb down in the kebab shop or sprinkling parmesan cheese on the pizza is punching below his weight and ought to be in the kitchen preparing quail in the sort of places nice people eat, they should not be there anyway.\u00a0 Which begs the question under what exact criteria DETE issues work permits to what are clearly takeaways and fast food joints.<\/p>\n

I am probably wasting my time anyway, as you may be pretty certain that the current review \u2013 which has attracted a large number of submissions \u2013 of the permits legislation will inevitably lead to the widening of the criteria of what constitutes a Critical Skill.\u00a0 This labour market driven demand is the overwhelming factor in current and projected levels of inward migration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Annual Report for 2025 from the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) details inspections and violations and cases taken…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,7307,6830,6465,61998],"class_list":{"0":"post-142169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-labour-market","12":"tag-migration","13":"tag-workplace-relations-commission","14":"tag-wrc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}