Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to ask the Taoiseach about the interim measures for asylum seekers accessing the labour market, and specifically accessing further education and training. We have undertaken to receive into Ireland several thousand Syrian refugees and that is in process at present. I do not know whether the Taoiseach is aware that access to the labour market generally is through access to further education and training or traditional third-level courses that have an employment, vocational or workplace training component. The problem is that there is a lack of clarity in education and training boards as to whether they can make provision for those who have come or, in this case, been invited as refugees and asylum seekers to Ireland. Unless they get adequate language skills and the education and vocational skills they require to become employable in Ireland, which they are anxious to become, the chances are they will be sitting in reception centres for a long period of time. That is not good for them. In fairness, it is disturbing to local people in the different areas where they are settling, notwithstanding all they are doing for asylum seekers, that they cannot properly access the jobs market. I noted yesterday that the Government made a decision to go back to the policy of the former Minister, Ms Mary Harney, and former Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern, to relax the visa requirements for those coming from outside the EEA in certain occupations paying €22,000 or more a year but it is doing little or nothing to provide for the rapid integration of the asylum seekers whom we have already invited into this country to access the language and education skills they need.

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