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BUSINESSES IN THE hospitality trade should be allowed to recruit asylum seekers to help plug skills gaps in the sector, according to an influential lobby group.
Eoghan O’Mara Walsh, chief executive of the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation (Itic), has said the State should consider relaxing rules that prevent asylum seekers from working in food and tourism businesses.
“There are lots of talented chefs, tour guides, people with hospitality skills who are currently not allowed work,” he said.
Under temporary measures introduced in February, asylum seekers aren’t permitted to work here unless they have been issued a permit or given approval to register as self-employed.
The measures followed a Supreme Court ruling that found a blanket ban on asylum seekers being able to obtain employment was unconstitutional.
However applicants under the new scheme must secure a job with a starting salary of at least €30,000 per annum to qualify and they are unable to apply for positions in more than 60 sectors, including hospitality.
TheJournal.ie reported this week that zero applications for employment permits from asylum seekers had been received by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation in the last month.
“Tourism has a problem: it can’t find enough qualified workers. If the qualified workers are within the refugee community, then we should give them every opportunity to earn a living,” O’Mara Walsh said.
O’Mara Walsh was speaking to Fora at the launch of Itic’s eight-year national strategy earlier this week. The organisation set out 40 policy recommendations to help grow Ireland’s revenue from overseas visitors from €4.9 billion to €8.1 billion by 2025.
Well-known restaurateur Sallyanne Clarke, who runs Dublin’s Michelin-star l’Ecrivain restaurant with her husband and celebrity chef, Derry, also raised the topic of recruiting asylum seekrs during a panel discussion at the Itic event.
Clarke said she can’t understand why people “who are qualified and want to be out there earning their own living” are off-limits for employers.
“I just don’t understand why the hospitality sector hasn’t been included,” she said.
A similar view is shared by the Restaurants Association of Ireland, whose chief executive, Adrian Cummins, has been highly critical of the restrictions imposed by the Department of Justice.
Skills shortage
A number of panelists at the Itic event agreed that Irish hospitality is likely to face a talent crunch as it looks to grow from 8.9 million annual visitors to 13.7 million by 2025.
During that same period, the industry is planning to add 80,000 workers to the existing 230,000 workforce.
Itic noted in the policy document that the difficult of attracting talented staff is already “significant” given the fact that Ireland’s unemployment rate has fallen below 6%.
Paul Carty, managing director of the Guinness Storehouse, said staffing is “going to be the biggest challenge” for the sector over the next decade.
“We have a very transient workforce in hotels and restaurants and attractions,” he told the conference.
“Some might say that’s OK; it works for the industry. But for the long-term, it’s not going to work. We’ve got to make it much more sustainable for a younger pipeline of talented people to come into the industry.”
Carty said tourism suffers from a “bad image” because it’s associated with long hours and seasonal work.
“It’s a tough, tough business; hard work, low margins generally. If we want people to go into it, we have got to engage with the education sector … We need to find a way to make the industry much more sexy.”
As part of its 2025 strategy, Itic put forward a number of suggestions – including the relaxation of rules on hiring non-EU nationals - to help recruit and retain skilled staff in the sector.
The organisation has suggested that a government-backed body take responsibility for the management of tourism education and training.
“The fundamental thing is that there’s no one accountable State agency responsible for Irish tourism education and skills. We think that should be Fáilte Ireland. We think it’s part of their memorandum,” O’Mara Walsh said.
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Itic – which counts Fáilte Ireland as an associate member – has called on the national tourism development agency to appoint a director to act as a liaison between the industry and the education system.
It has also suggested the rollout of a communications programme to promote careers in the sector targeting second-level students and jobseekers in general.
“This should be coordinated and funded by Fáilte Ireland,” Itic said in its policy document.
In addition to promoting the industry, Itic has recommended that tourism businesses that only operate for certain months of the year should be “incentivised to open their kitchens and premises as training venues”.
“This can be done through direct funding or a specific tax-relief for the business in question,” the organisation said.
Written by Conor McMahon and posted on Fora.ie
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If they gave people full time employment they would get skilled staff,instead of just 3-4 days a week,0 contract hours.
@@mdmak33: The gender wage difference doesn’t seem to matter at the bottom.
@@mdmak33: what they really want is immigrants in these jobs to pay them minimum wage. IRISH people getting pushed out because they know what there entitled to , ie holiday pay, overtime, etc….. immigrants being exploited… open your mouth and your gone ….. absolutely disgusting…. that’s what this article is really about…
@windbag: Then they blame socialists for bringing them in when all the the it’s for capitalist wage slavery trade.
@windbag: I don’t believe that there is any automatic entitlement to overtime pay in Irish law, save for those bound contractually.
A few years back when I was learning to be a chef I saw an add for a chefing job in a hotel. Minimum 3 years experience in a 4 star hotel required. So that’s 2-3 years college plus another 3 years experience in a 4 star hotel. What was the pay offered for this job? You guessed it. Minimum wage. And they are crying about not finding staff? Should have just left school and got work in a petrol station.
@Gareth Stewart: the want foreign staff that don’t know labor laws one place I worked nobody ever got holiday pay and when people did ask for it before going home the boss was never there conviently to give it to them because he’d know they were leaving the country to go back. One girl knew this so she swiped the till of 600 Euros and left back to Poland she knew she hadn’t a hope in hell of getting her last wages!!!!
@Jonathan Power:
There are routes to follow to sort that out. Saying the boss wasn’t around on payday is a bit weak
@Gareth Stewart: Spot on. Employers want skilled labour ie experience but want to pay the least they can get away with paying. They want migrant workers who will be grateful to accept that.
@Cindy Crawford: I meant asylum seekers. Though I don’t think emloyers care what their status is as long as they’re cheap to employ.
@Gareth Stewart: This is an incredibly worrying trend which just keeps on growing and growing. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve listened to business owners saying “we can’t get the staff” or “we can’t get the right staff”. And there’s a reason for that…they’re not willing to pay the right wage! If you pay people the right wage and treat them well they return the favour with unbridled loyalty (in my experience anyway)
Cheap labour is all they want.
@BigSFLou..ny: they already have cheap labour. They want even cheaper labour and zero rights for non contract workers
@BigSFLou..ny: that’s all I took from the article..
good old “race to the bottom”
@BigSFLou..ny: Eh? What’s up? When did you reject your rightwing neoliberalism and become “loony leftist”? Reality starting to dawn on you now?
@Coles: Cé?
@BigSFLou..ny: The only way we can combat this and make an impact is to boycott member associated with this group http://www.itic.ie/members-list/
This push for even cheaper labor is a disgrace, a line must be drawn.
The solution is to pay people a decent wage and proper contracts for hard jobs with unsocialable hours.
Don’t forget that the 9% Vat rule is still in place when hotels are full and charging high prices and still want to screw the staff.
@Peter McMahon: Screw the staff? Haven’t they heard of the #Metoo movement.
I smell a Tesco stunt on this one the tourism trade want cheap labour to do their bidding just like Tesco tried to hire staff some years ago from one of the Government services where Tesco would have to pay very little to make up the social payments but were found out and stopped.
@Alan Scott: Think Supervalu were the main ones for hiring from Jobbridge tbh
Irish hotels have never had it so good. Record 90% occupancy rates, the most expensive rooms across the EU, a lowered Vat rate, and even a massive taxpayer homeless housing scheme to support them, but still hotels treat their workers like dirt.
Sure, allow asylum seekers to work and live meaningful lives, but don’t try to use them to undermine other workers.
@Coles:
They are not the most expensive hotels in the EU, they are no where near the most expensive but don’t let the facts get in the way of your agenda
@Nick Allen: they’re expensive enough tho
@Nick Allen: They’re up there with the most expensive hotels in Europe, while paying their staff low pay and on poor contracts (if on one at all). They are the facts….
Nick Allen doesn’t like facts. They hurt his fragile grasp on reality.
Most expensive hotels in the EU (Norway is not in the EU).
CIF will be next, to plug the gap in the building industry ! god forbid that they might actually pay decent rates.
@zippo: What?
Do you actually know what the rates are in the construction sector?
@VeeryDrink: I know exactly what the rates are, across the construction sector. And while many decent companies abide by the rates, there are very many unscrupulous employers out there that do not!
@VeeryDrink: Yes I do, I’ve worked in the construction industry for 30+ years, I’ve yet to work for a company that made money ! constant whinging about rates of pay, now we have loads of bogus “self employed” and C2′s. I bailed out a while back and now work abroad where you at least get a bit of respect and decent pay. Construction companies in Ireland treat their employees as a cost to be laid off ASAP.
They should pay their present staff €30,000 and more a year and then they would be at the right level to employ asylum seekers. By the way the unions and government figure for average wage is €20,000 not €40,000. Articles like this help prove it . House prices are still way too dear for a young couple to buy.
@Thomas Roche: alot of professionals start off in the lower €20ks. Not sure catering is a €30k profession tbh.
@Eamo Hansen: Have to agree with you there ,while some years ago it was a dedicated professionals requiring many years of training and further experience for any department, its not so now. Minimum training and experience seems to be the only requirement.
@RJ.Fallon: Thats why good Chefs leave the trade, Paid on the same scale as less experienced Chefs and they get disillusioned as to why they do more work for the same pay and conditions.
@RJ.Fallon: I worked in one 3 Star Hotel a major one in the west of Ireland and it was a production factory doing well over a 1000 covers a day could have a wedding and different things on at the same time.
Absolutely everything was bought in pre prepared you didn’t need a set of knives a scissors would be enough to open all the bags of prepared vegetables fruit meats etc.
You were an assembler like a production factory plating up all day no cooking knowledge needed that’s the way it’s all going to cut costs.
Most asylum seekers are engineers and surgeons so likely over-qualified for these jobs.
@James Le Fleur: Very good point. A lot of them are over qualified but that shouldn’t exclude those that want to work in hospitality from doing so.
@James Le Fleur: You should have made your Hasbara point about how asylum seekers shouldn’t work in hospitality because they might rape the guests. You really missed a trick. Try harder with your hate mongering.
@Coles: back to your safe space snowflake. People bypassing safe countries destroying documents to get aboard the welfare gravy train.
@James Le Fleur: What will the Irish people do while their jobs are taken from under them and for a lot less wages?
@Coles: How many asylum scammers have you taken in, snowflake?
@Michael Shite:.
Dey tuk ur jebs.
@Coles: so that’s a zero then snowflake?
@Michael Shite:
Dey tuk ur jebs.
You so wacist. You so dumb.
@Coles: The outrage is strong in this Libtard.
If they paid a decent wage they could get plenty of qualified staff.
Fake News. They want cheaper staff who don’t care about their rights
I prefer my tour guide to be a local with local knowledge. Have they ever considered this job might not be suitable for someone on a work permit?
They don’t need to make it “sexy” they need to figure out a way to pay people a living wage, provide full or guaranteed part-time hours and decent working conditions; that is true no matter WHO they employ; but this article “smells” of “we need cheap labor who are desperate that won’t complain about being paid next to nothing to do back-breakingly hard work with no contracts and no benefits.”
A bald face attempt to recruit cheap labour . Another scam to force wages down and completely screw the legal workers here in this country . Enough is enough FFS .
Last time this country allowed asylum seekers work this country was flooded with “economic asylum seekers” that crippled our system.
That system is still incredibly slow to process asylum seekers and doesn’t need more pressure put on it. Idea should be binned permanently
Outrageous, this the very sector that used and abused with gusto the work permit programme. If they paid their staff acceptable wages, introduced decent working hours they might actually retain staff. Indeed, they were lighting fast to request of their staff, reductions in hours and wages during the recession. The hospitality sector became a very inhospitable place to work during the recession, the hospitality aspect vanished. Disgraceful attempts to fill gaps using the cheapest ways possible.
Is this an April fool’s joke? If not then the answer is simple and can be put into practice immediately: apply, as a minimum, Trade Union rates of pay and working conditions and there will be an abundance of skilled people within in Ireland and the European Union to take up the positions.
Perfect opportunity for two different groups to further their own separate agendas. The hospitality industry has a notorious reputation as a zero hour, minimum wage employer and see bogus asylum seekers from Pakistan or Nigeria as just the kind of people they need to make money from. Meanwhile, the asylum seeker lobby with its 90% + rejection rate see this as a means of legitimizing the mainstream fraud and deception of the asylum seeking process. Simple solution 1: if the hospitality industry offers decent pay and condition they will have no problem recruiting Irish workers; solution 2: deport failed asylum seekers and keep the asylum system for bona fida political refugees.
@Brian Deane: so far on here , very few posters have mentioned the skills needed to work in the Hospitality industry , or does it not matter any more , like what skills would you need to be a food server , or barman , or receptionist. why is it not like when bar staff needed to be qualified to a very high standard , or food service staff needed a minimum of two years training to learn the basics of serving food and wines .why is that not happening any more .
is it because the costumer is not fussy any more , just put a plate of edible food in front of him and thats grand??.
theres a lot more to it than people are prepared to admit.
I thought the Government has been granting them tax concessions for years to overcome the problem of having to pay a decent wage.
Typical Hotel & Catering Industry…..pay as little as possible ‘ treat their staff like sh@@e’ zero hour contracts ‘ long hours ‘ no life ‘
And they are wondering why they have a skills shortage …..idiots
That’s what has destroyed the industry ‘ you come to Ireland to meet the Irish and their welcome not some lad or lass that is just landed and has broken English.
Hotel & Catering owners ….time to wake up
@Mark Walsh: Clearly the Irish don’t want to meet them.
Is that a ‘skills gap’ or a ‘we are better off on the welfare’ gap?
@Nick Allen: Did you ever work or more to point depend on an actual physical ,labour real job? Always so ready to shoehorn in some snide derogatory remark about ordinary people and welfare.
Working class jobs on the way down since the Thatcher/Reagon era with no end in sight semi slavery zero contract, Don’t give me any shite about education and improving themselves. These jobs are the vital ones that keep the world moving, not the ‘Created’ desk jobs.
@Nick Allen: Why would someone work when they’re better off financially on social welfare? The government need to make work a more viable, attractive option.
Leaders in the race to employment if wages and conditions were better you would have no jobs in hiring but again just trying to pay slave conditions. People do like to work but trying slave conditions not on.
What about all the wasters drawing welfare from cradle to grave. About time they were made get up off their asses and contribute to the exchequer
@Kevin Moylan:
Got to agree with you there Kevin 6% unployment rate at the moment
Shantell wants to stay at home with her 3 little ones
@Flippermac: How do you expect Shantell to pay for childcare if her wages are less than her babysitter charges?
@Ciara Ni Mhurchu:
I know why would chantell go to work when she can get all for nothing
Give me a break
Child care
We all pay it
Just some don’t take the easy route
@Flippermac: Shantell staying at home with her 3 little ones is something she should be able to do if she wants to. After all, she’s raising her own children as opposed to someone else raising them.
@Cindy Crawford: Best of luck using coming sense on this crowd!
@Cindy Crawford:
Yes that’s true
But it’s the tax payer that’s paying for it
That’s the difference
We all pay for childcare
Medical bills
And so on
It’s called life
But some don’t want to just sit on there arse and expect someone else to do the hard work
Rember you are what you bring up
That’s my point
@Flippermac: My point is why pay someone else to bring up one’s own child. I don’t have children so it never applied to me. I’ve made the point before that we all get help one way or another. In my case it’s mortgage relief. Have you got a problem with that?
@Cindy Crawford:
Ha ha another one
Poor me
Life so hard
Bue fecking hoo
@Coles: It’s a hard battle.
@Flippermac: I’m far from a poor me kind of person. I have a wonderful life which I appreciate every day. Now why don’t you slide back under your rock.
@Cindy Crawford:
Yep no bother
Normal attuded from a fee loader
I’m going back under my rock now
Witch I pay for and don’t expect some one else to pay for
Ta ta
@Flippermac: I work & pay for my house. Please accept my apologies for stooping to your level. Sometimes I forget my manners.
@Flippermac: I take it you don’t work as a proofreader.
Blaaaaaa blaaaaaaaa blaaaaaa blaaaaaa bue fecking hooooo
@Kevin Moylan: i agree to a point ,but what about their training , who pays the cost of that , and could take a year or two for some departments , twice as long for others.
@Flippermac: Rearing thee kids is unememployed in your world, how many other jobs were you holding down when you were doing it, genius.
@Jointheclubtoo:
Corse it’s hard work
But ppl do it
Why should the tax payer pay for it
Lots off ppl single or married
Do it week in week out
Genius
And don’t look for hangouts
What guarantee is there they will not be put on Zero contracts and put on paultry wages as are most in that industey.
Maybe to continue minimum hour contracts and pay. Hours cut to hospitaliry staff at will already. Government just allowed the RAI to recruit staff outzide the EU.
Is this an April fool’s joke? If not then the answer is simple and can be put into practice immediately: apply, as a minimum, Trade Union rates of pay and working conditions and there will be an abundance of skilled people within Ireland and the European Union to take up the positions
An awful lot of experts in the hotel trade here.
The good news is when all these experts set up there are own hotel businesses and apparently make millions every day the expected shortage of rooms will be sorted.
A side benefit would be they will not have time to complain on here.
@P.J. Nolan:
Did you spend the morning thinking tgat one up
@P.J. Nolan:
FYI PJ I’m an ex Hotel Manager so know a lot about this …..notice the Ex
Get rid of 0 hour contracts and pay a living wage instead of minimum wage and they would have to turn down staff. It may be the case that they need further VAT breaks PAYE workers have got no help to recover.
And here we have it, basic economics, reduce the cost of labor by importing a workforce. Cheap labor disguised as humanitarian support, its been the goal since day 1.
The reason the hotel industry has such a high attrition rate is due to the…. pathetic pay and antisocial hours.
Imagine how much money you would save if you didn’t have to continually recruit and re-train new staff every 4-6 months and imagine how much more efficient manager would be if they could build actual working relationships with their staff.
Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys.
Quote -According to an influential “Lobby” group – got to admire the pun.
Btw, what exactly is a Lobby group, how do they become influencers, do they get government to listen to them and enact proposals ?
That sounds novel and Cool…
More cheap labour for hoteliers
Once the hospitality trade poor wages doesn’t force them to live below the poverty line like health care workers then happy days.
They just want cheap labour !
@John Judd: I dont know why people keep saying this , you wont get properly trained and qualified , dedicated staff by offering low wages and bad conditions . those businesses which do so will be very sub-standard ,
The Irish tourism board are already looking in Italy and Croatia for chefs
http://www.thejournal.ie/chefs-shortage-ireland-2-3891666-Mar2018/
And then their the 1st industry to bitch when there’s talk of raising the minimum wage.
@nick flavin: but then the Industry has to pass this cost on the the costumer , who will then complain about this extra cost , .
do any of you realise the massive overheads involved in running a hotel or restaurant.
it doesnt seem you do.
@RJ.Fallon: There is a financial cost to running any business, the hospitality industry is no different yet perhaps is more labour intensive than most. Instead of lobbying for changes in the law to tap a labour pool, would it not be better to determine why there is a reluctance to enter the industry as a career. Do any of these employers appear in the best places to work surveys, do they conduct employee exit surveys to determine why people leave, do you operate a trade body to peg labour rates at a minimum collectively ?
@wattsed: i fully agree with you , but most other businesses are not seasonal with 3 or 4 months of near shutdown every year,.
@RJ.Fallon: i was a chef for 16 years,so yeah i do understand.what i also understand is that if you cant afford to pay your staff a liveable wage well then maybe you shouldn’tbe in buisness at all.also i have seen how staff in the industry are treated like dirt.
have your say