Almost 5,000 people called a confidential helpline providing advice and a referral service for migrants seeking information on the immigration system in the first six months of the year.
The most common enquiry to the helpline, run by the Immigrant Council of Ireland, related to the residency rights for the parents of Irish citizen children, with 791 calls logged between January 1st to July 1st.
A large number of these calls were made following the European Court of Justice's ruling in the Zambrano case in February. In this landmark judgment, the court found a non-EU national parent of an EU citizen child has the right to reside within an EU member state and to be granted a work permit.
Chief executive Denise Charlton said today the council had delivered public information sessions at local level on the judgment in response to the large number of helpline calls.
"We received 325 queries from overseas callers this year, compared to178 for the same time period last year. Again, this increase is directly attributable to the Zambrano ruling," she said.
In total the helpline dealt with 4,675 enquiries from 137 different nationalities in the first half of the year. The highest volume of queries were made by Nigerians (452 calls). Indians (379 calls), Pakistanis (152 calls) and South Africans (113 calls) also made large numbers of queries.
Other issues cited by callers were:
- renewal of status (323 calls)
- leave to remain as a family member of a citizen of the European economic area
- work permits (232 calls)
- leave to remain as a family member of an Irish national 214 calls
- Family reunification (204 calls)
- leave to remain on other grounds (196 calls)
- long term residency (174 calls)
- visit visas (148 calls)
The total number of calls received was similar to the volume of calls made in the same period last year. In the period December 1st 2009 to January 1st 2011, some 9,895 people contacted the helpline.
Ms Charlton said the continuing large number of calls to the helpline illustrated that it is a myth to think that immigrants were going home due to the recession.
"The evidence from our helpline statistics overwhelmingly shows that, rather than leaving the State, many are doing all in their power to remain here, to remain in employment, and to continue to choose Ireland as their home," she said.