Restricting work rights for students from outside the European Economic Area will jeopardise the future of some English language schools here, it has been claimed.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell said yesterday that from next April, only students attending full-time courses, which run for at least one year and which have qualifications recognised by the Department of Education, will be permitted to work.
Students attending short-term courses will also only be allowed to stay in Ireland for a maximum of 18 months.
The Minister said that the measures were being introduced as a result of "widespread abuse" of existing arrangements.
However a spokesman for the Association of English Language Schools, MEI-RELSA, said last night that the restrictions would put Ireland at a serious competitive disadvantage.
The spokesman said that State agencies had given financial support to schools to develop overseas education markets which are worth about €300 million annually. He said that allowing students to subvent their study through part-time work - a facility offered by competitor countries such as Britain, Canada and Australia - was part of the attraction of Ireland. However he said that this was now being removed for all schools in the sector, including those regulated by the Department of Education.
Students already in Ireland will be unaffected by the new restrictions.
Since April 2000, all students from outside the European Economic Area (EU countries as well as Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland) have been able to work up to 20 hours a week during term time and full time during holidays.
Mr McDowell said "allowing all students access to the labour market made sense when it was introduced in 2000, but it no longer does in 2004 with the evidence of widespread abuse in the sector".
The Department of Justice said later yesterday that "a minority of educational institutions" had used the working arrangements "to sell their customers an education product which amounted to little more than access to the Irish labour market"
There are about 25,000 foreign nationals currently in Ireland on student visas.
A major Garda investigation into schools for overseas students carried out last year identified more than a dozen institutions which they believed to be "bogus". Under the terms of their visas, students were required to be involved in substantial study.
However, some of the schools simply stamped their attendance records in order to keep them compliant with immigration laws. Some schools did not have sufficient staff or facilities to cope with the number of students on their books and in a small number of cases, schools did not even have classrooms.