Professor Siobhán Mullally:

At the moment, we do not know what that might look like but any such restrictions would add to the barriers to people seeking employment. People come with a range of different skills. The labour market tends to look after itself in the sense that if there is work available, people will be able to find employment. We do not see it as a necessary or proportionate restriction. To ensure that people have effective access, it would be preferable to have that as open as possible. The key point is that we see this as being critical to the long-term integration of refugees, to their inclusion in Irish society and to combatting the very serious risk of labour exploitation. If people are restricted in terms of the kinds of employment that they can seek and are being pushed into self employment, that poses a very serious risk of labour exploitation and trafficking for the purposes of same, with asylum seekers being targeted for that purpose. In order to reduce that vulnerability, we would argue that we need to ensure effective and open access to the labour market. Ultimately, the labour market will look after itself. People come with different skills and can make a contribution and as we know, that is critical to their long-term integration into Irish society.