Government immigration policies are 'anti-family', says council

This Government's immigration policies and procedures are "anti-family" and "causing heartache", the Immigrant Council of Ireland has said.

Publishing its annual statistics yesterday the council said of the 2,500 inquiries it received between July 1st, 2003, and June 30th, 2004, 15 per cent were about problems with family reunification.

The other main queries being brought to the council's attention were about how to remain in Ireland and problems with the work permit system, making up 12 per cent and nine per cent of all queries respectively.

Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, chief executive of the council, said the high numbers making inquiries about the family re-unification process "found the process of achieving this heartbreakingly difficult".

"Problems experienced by people related to the bureaucratic nature of making such applications - the fact that it can often take well over a year to get a decision and the fact that the decision-making process is discretionary and not transparent," she said.

Inquiries about the issue came from numerous groups including Irish people and other citizens of the EU who have the legal right to have their non-EU spouse join there here, says the report. There were also people here on work permits and visas, refugees and those who had been given humanitarian leave to remain here.

"People are unhappy about having to leave their families," said Sister Kennedy. "They are often lonely and isolated without the support structure of a family around them."

She called on the Government to stop treating immigrants as "just workers who are needed on a temporary basis to fill gaps in the economy". They should instead be seen as people with families and potentially permanent members of society.

While welcoming the move in February to ease the restrictions on family reunification for some applicants, particularly nurses from the Philippines, Sister Kennedy said it was not enough.

"The contribution of people here on work permits and their spouses should be valued just as much as those on visas for what are termed 'higher skilled' positions. The current discrimination isolates and marginalises families who most often have to try and survive on just one income."

There was also a significant proportion of enquiries about rights to remain in the State, particularly from non-EU parents of Irish children.

"The 11,000 families who applied for residency on the basis of having an Irish citizen child when it was still possible to do so, should have their rights respected," said Sister Kennedy.

"They had been living in limbo since the Supreme Court ruling in January 2003 that having a child born here did not automatically confer residency rights on its parents. They are a specific group of people who should have their situation regularised as soon as possible."