'Why beg? It's so embarrassing'

As a Romanian who has been living in Ireland since 1999, Doina Breen, whose first name is pronounced Doh-eena, knows there is an image problem. She blames "the Gypsies", reports Kathy Sheridan

The picture of Romania is not Gypsies. That's not the face of Romania. Irish people see women and children not well dressed to get money. No way you can't afford not to dress your children in this country. Everybody is getting social welfare here. They have a house and money to live on, so why are they begging? It's so embarrassing. Look at their gold, shoes, cars," she says, clearly upset.

"You need a lot of dollars to move countries. It was because they had so much money that they were the first to leave the country after the revolution. They don't want to work. They take food. A lot of them have houses 10 times the size of this," she says, glancing around the pretty, immaculately maintained two-bedroom house she shares with her Irish husband, Pat, on a new estate in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford. "I worry that some people think all Romanians are like that."

Doesn't it all sound a bit reminiscent of what many Irish people say about Travellers? "I don't believe I'm racist. There is no comparison with Irish Travellers; I know some of them. They seem very honest to me, nice, sincere. In Romania the gypsies are complaining and complaining. They are here for money, not because they're treated badly in Romania. They even have their own special government department, run by a Gypsy."

Although she was born into a relatively well-off family in the city of Iasi, an eight- to 10-hour train journey from Bucharest, and is a qualified accountant, Breen's life has not been easy. Her first husband was killed in a car crash in 1987, leaving her with a three-year-old daughter, Smeranda.

Holding down a responsible and stressful job, she developed serious health problems, requiring two years of chemotherapy in Bucharest. Her parents - already sharing the care of Smeranda with her sister - had to sell their car to pay for transport and allow them to stay with her in Bucharest during treatment.

Afterwards, although not fully recovered from her health problems, she set up an accountancy business. Scarce money was spent on things such as educating her daughter, who went to a special English school. "She speaks English like she's from Enniscorthy," says Breen with some satisfaction.

Like all Romanians, the family had a small plot of land in the countryside, where she grew potatoes to make ends meet and buy her first car. Then she got a contract with a Romanian-German company, which sent her to Germany for work experience. Through a manager there she met Pat Breen from Co Dublin. Five years later the mere mention of him brings happy tears to the eyes of this fiercely independent woman.

"Smeranda loved him from the beginning. He is the best father she could have had, and I could cry for days about how good he is as a grandfather to Smeranda's child. I love him to bits." They got married two years ago.

Nonetheless, at the beginning, life in Ireland was a mixed bag for her. She had money enough to rent a house straight away, so she was dependent on nobody. When she went seeking a work permit from the Department of Foreign Affairs the first surprise was the sight of so many refugees.

"I could see it was very hard for the officials to judge what was the situation. But I never met anyone racist anywhere in the Government Departments; I never felt I was just another immigrant. I didn't have a lot of problems, because I had Pat as my guarantor."

But despite her international qualifications and a CV translated by her embassy and lodged with 10 recruitment companies, she encountered one major obstacle: her English. "I used to walk a lot, because I didn't know how to ask the driver of a bus where to go. It's like you're blind, deaf and dumb. You have to learn English if you want to live here. So I was crying every night, trying to learn it from tapes, from books, papers, everything. I always just felt if an employer gave me the chance they'd never let me go."

It was Pat who suggested that her job-hunting might yield better results down the country. On a visit to Wexford they saw that Michael O'Leary & Co, a local accountancy firm, was looking for a trainee. An exchange of letters culminated in an interview. "Michael O'Leary said I'd be too old for a trainee's job; I said I didn't want to clean streets or rob things. And he gave me the job. He is the best, the best, the best I could meet in a boss - and his wife is the same."

On a trainee's wages, she supplemented her income in the early days by cleaning the company's offices and taking on restaurant work at weekends, all organised "properly", she stresses, through a recruitment company.

Coming from that perspective, she has little time for people, especially her compatriots,"who want to make money by tricking the system. I know families who work so hard day and night to make money so they can go back to Romania and have their own house, and I have a lot of sympathy for them. There are many rich people in Romania and many poor; there is no middle class.

"My parents are supposed to be middle class, but they're getting poorer every year. My mum has a €35 a month pension from a government job and my father has €70. I send some money, but I work for it; I don't sell Big Issues or flowers. I have a lot of Romanian friends who disappointed me very badly, because they are not interested in working, only in how to get social welfare and talking very badly about one another."

Given power, she would show no mercy. "If tomorrow someone said, 'You can be Minister for Justice in Ireland,' I'd start with my people first. I'd go through the files, ask how many years has this family been here, then I'd call them in - and if he has a permit and been here five years and was still talking like, 'Me Tarzan, you Jane, I can find no job,' I would say, 'That's it, go back.' Yes, I'd do that tomorrow. Once you have a permit why not work?"

She and Smeranda, now 20 and soon to start training as a legal secretary, are well integrated, she says. Although Breen can claim Irish citizenship in December, she is not "waiting" for it.

"It will make no difference to my life. And I don't want to give up my Romanian citizenship, so I will keep my Romanian passport updated. But I am getting to be more Irish, relaxing a bit. I don't drink a lot, but I do socialise."

Her dearest friends are Irish. "We could spend all day laughing and joking. We also visit Pat's daughter, and she comes here. My mother is here for a few months.

"The only difference for me is that I don't have family here. We were never pub people in Romania, but every single Sunday we had dinner together." Smeranda makes a point of talking to her daughter in Romanian, so that the child will be able to talk to her grandparents.

Their Irish home is half Romanian, half Irish. Hand-painted plates and serviettes in the Romanian colours, pictures of Romanian scenery and pieces of china and glass adorn the walls and shelves. "I love Irish traditional music, but we have lot of traditional Romanian music too."

Meanwhile, Pat has been smitten by Romania. They travelled back by car in 2002. "Everybody loved him, and he loved everybody. He thought it was absolutely beautiful. He'd like to live there when we retire."