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THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL PROTECTION is advertising a job carrying out excavation work in Iraq on its website.
The position is one of over 90 that are advertised on the former FÁS jobs website, which is now managed by the Department of Social Protection, for employment based outside of Ireland and indeed Europe.
Other advertisements seek plumbers, nurses, technicians, jewellers and other professionals to work in countries including Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and Jamaica.
The job for a ’360 Excavator Machine Driver’ in Iraq was posted to the website last week and advertises the position to someone who has “many years experience as a machine driver”.
A 360 excavator is a large excavation machine generally found on construction sites.
The job description says that the successful candidate will be expected to drive machines ranging from 15 to 30 tonne moving topsoil, general earthworks and working on embankments.
The successful candidate will also be expected to move to Iraq, a country which has been torn apart by violence and civil war in recent years following the US-led invasion in March 2003 which deposed former dictator Saddam Hussein.
A spokesperson for Longford-based recruitment agency, Connect, said they had not come across such a position before but said it had been contacted by a large Irish company working in Iraq seeking to fill the position.
The job will pay €35,000 annually and will be on a permanent contract.
A number of jobs based in Europe are also advertised on the jobseeker website including positions in Sweden, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Malta.
Earlier this year, Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty accused the government of actively encouraging emigration by offering an unemployed man in his 60s a job in Malta as a bus driver for €250 per week.
The Department of Social Protection said at the time that the offer was made as a result of the European Employment Service (EURES) initiative “that has been in existence for a long number of years” and is “extremely popular with jobseekers throughout Europe”.
It pointed out that the role was offered on a voluntary basis and there was no punishment or loss of benefits for declining the offer.
The Department was not able to respond to questions from TheJournal.ie yesterday regarding advertisements for jobs based outside of Europe.
Amendment: This article has been amended to reflect that the website in question is managed by the Department of Social Protection and is no longer affiliated to FÁS, the State Training and Employment Agency, which is currently in the process of being wound down.
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I thought the Journal was better than this. This is Daily Mail journalism. It’s a job advertised on an on-line notice board that FAS provide for employers and people seeking employment.
It’s not a job being offered by FAS.
FAS aren’t the employer, or paying anything out.
This is costing the tax payer nothing.
If FAS allow an employer to offer a position for a Masseuse will your headline be “FAS Employees oil up on tax payers money!”?
I’m sick of this twisting of every story to make FAS look like the bad guy. I’m an employer and I’ve employed 4 people from FAS training courses now. They are excellent. I really feel for the staff at FAS. The kicking the media give them is relentless and unfair. Yes, their board of directors used to be morons, but they are all long gone – about 4 years now. The staff there are working hard to get people in jobs and the whole time the media is twisting and misrepresenting every news story that has the word FAS in it. It’s just lazy journalism.
Mr Murray,
You just hit the nail on the head with all you said.
And fair play to you for being able to hire more staff, long may it continue.
At Andy, Im assuming you’ve never had to deal with FAS?
The staff just read off the FAS website, seriously that’s it.
Actually I do. I advertise jobs on the boards (saves a fortune – the commercial boards want over €1000 to advertise a job) and have spoken with the head office staff about how to get students who need placements.
I have even been put through to a trainer so he could confirm what the students were being taught on one particular topic. I have found them to be fine in all my dealings.
The only problem I had was getting through to the right person (I got passed through a few people first) but when you get the right person they are helpful. I’ve never dealt with them as a job seeker, just as an employer.
Off course you find them helpful there saving you money fair play to you for hiring more staff , my point is who the fuc@ would in tgere right mind would go work in Iraq or ask somone to go there , why are we taking in ppl from Iraq if there low skilled jobs there
the only thing Fas are good at is , pissing away a budget of €1billion a year ,
the country doesn’t get much return for that .
biggest waste out of all the QUANGOES
Hi Andy,
Thanks for your comment and I take your points but the point of the story is not to kick FÁS and make it look like the bad guy, in fact we try not to kick anyone unless it’s necessary.
The point of the story is to highlight that jobs in Iraq and other countries are being advertised on a government funded website, a government which has committed to reducing the unemployment crisis here at home and to stem the flow of emigration.
It’s not about taxpayer cost, at no point does the article raise the taxpayer. It’s about how this tallies with the government’s commitment to reduce unemployment in Ireland. All these questions I put to the Department of Social Protection yesterday with no response as yet.
Thanks again for your comment.
Hugh
I wonder does the package include Kidnap/Ransom insurance.
Because they can’t find anyone stupid or desperate enough to risk their lives for €35K in Iraq?
Typical cheap arse Irish employer offering shit money to do a extraordinarily dangerous job.
35,000 about what the average Private military contractor made out there in a 12 month stint.
If you can give me secure accomatation a M16 and bullet proof vest,I’d be intrested.
I can only speak from my personal dealings with FAS and they have been nothing short of useless. They pressured me to go on a course that I had no interest in doing and when I tried to explain that by doing this course it would cost me over €1500 they didn’t care. When I ring about anything they want me to come in and see them just to fill their appointment book. I’m sure Andy like organisations there are good and bad. I’m just stating the FAS office I had to deal with.
€35,000 a year to work in Iraq!!! Are they havin a Fookin laugh!
You would wanna be gettin another €35,000 danger money on top!!
Yeah it’s ‘fookin’ madness alright
Don’t laugh but if they don’t fill the position it will be on job bridge next . “Internship in social excavation” “Applicant must bring own shovel”
35k in Iraq is bankers salary here. Use the money over there to buy something of value. Sell it back here. I’m tempted cept I’ve only ever hired out a mini digger for a day to dig a small drain. Would that qualify me?
A friend of mine used to work for an American oil company and said he could get anyone willing USD 3k a week just to be a labourer in Iraq – that’s about 150k a year with no skill and no experience. If you’re tempted to work in a war zone to make some money, please shop around further than the FAS website!
And funeral costs
What’s the problem with this? Some people actually want to work overseas. Nobody is being forced to take the job, so no problem.
Nearly as dangerous as working in limerick!!
What’s the point here? A job agency advertising jobs outside the country? I really don’t get the problem.
I think it’s the 35k. As stated in earlier comments. I personally know techs out there on $1000 per day in “relatively” safe compounds.
OK but have we any reason to believe that this post is not also in a safe compound..?
Did you miss the 35k a year part verses $1000 a day???
What’s wrong with going were the work is? People have been doing for hundreds of years.
Odd…. When there ore no options for jobs…. People complain…. When there are job options… People pick it apart and complain.
You complainers are absolutely exasperating!
@Marlon.
Completely agree. There is decent work out there somewhere for everyone. It may not be in your home town, and exactly what you had in mind, but that’s the world we live in.
@Pádraic O’Callanáin re your comment: “There is decent work out there somewhere for everyone. It may not be in your home town, and exactly what you had in mind, but that’s the world we live in.” – is this some kind of high satire?! I really hope so. If not, what job wouldn’t prompt this autopilot neoliberal mantra? Prostitution? Private Security Contracting? Drug Muling? Working on the Deadliest Catch?
@ fleeting whim
Perhaps I am an optimist, but my point was that if you study Neuroscience, it is unlikely you will get a job on Inis Mor, if you’re a sheep farmer in the Bronx you might struggle, or if you studied Urban Planning, its unlikely that you will get a job in Connemara, so what do you do?
Your anonymous ‘I’m too unsure of myself to even attach my own identity to my comments’ attitude is indicative of the ‘can’t do’ ‘blame society and just get real mad in front of my apple mac’ champagne socialism that achieves nothing. Sorry reality is such an inconvenience, but when is the last time you said to yourself ‘what can I do for myself to improve my circumstances and to better my lot?’
Padriac…
I’m with you on optimism.
However, I believe the problem is is that we are surrounded by begrudgers and folks who are used to being soon fed or led.
Obviously you’re unfamiliar with the concept of internet avatars, which doesn’t surprise me given everything you say is perfectly in tune with just the kind of sycophantic, ‘I’ll eat whatever shit is thrown at me’ attitude employers can’t get enough of.
Your deeply unoriginal exhortation for me to pull up my bootstraps, when you know absolutely nothing about me only further illustrates your incapacity to formulate a coherent argument. What’s up next on the neoliberal cliche bingo card?
You amuse me fleetingwhim.
To quote Thatcher:
“I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left”.
This more or less sums up your approach to debate.
So have you anything positive to say, or do you just sit in the corner of the room and growl? You seem to be confined to ad hominem style responses.
I can see that you are attached to your buzzwords, but I am not a neoliberal. I am old school capitalist and it is not to be confused with passes for capitalism today: corporate socialism.
Thanks for the Thatcher quote – you’re fulfilling all my prejudices about mindless right-wingers given you’re actually dumb enough to quote Thatcher, one of the primary architects of neoliberalism, while arguing you’re not a neoliberal. QED.
Clearly a 1st year politics student with a vague memory of some pass maths.
Did your mother buy you a neoliberal lunchbox and pajamas as a kid, or what’s your obsession with this word?
A job is a job. No doubt this will appeal to some. Don’t see the problem at all.
Job requires the IQ of a ham sandwich.
You’ve obviously never worked with large excavators. Very easy to drive one to and fro in a field and dig a bit of a ditch, but very difficult to do the precise work that modern construction and pre-fab builds require, and do it quickly and consistently for hour after hour.
@ Seamus: Does that rule you off the shortlist?
Iv seen it all now, next they be recruiting x paramilitarys for Syria
You could end up digging your own grave.
There’s enough holes already.
It’ll be on job-bridge next week.
I thought Fas’s job was to take people off the Live Register, not put them on the death register…
I wouldn’t work for 35k in Ireland let alone in Iraq!
What’s the minimum wage you’d consider worthy of hauling your sorry a$$ out of bed for?
I’m on £27k here in England but I’m only a first year graduate and the cost of living here is so much cheaper. I won’t be back until ill be on more than 40. Why the f&ck did I go to college to earn less than a bus driver in Ireland?!
@ Jingles
‘Wouldn’t work in Ireland for 35k’ – what an attitude. Clearly your graduate position is your first ever job too. Your folks must be delighted to have their little subsidised Celtic Tiger brat off the family payroll finally.
typical irrogant lazy arse attitude of some irish people
, I’m more Qualified than you B0ll0x”
Well if you were to lose your £27k job I hope you’d take whatever you could get instead of sitting on the dole and waiting for a job to come along with the level of pay you think you deserve.
As a graduate I spent several months flipping burgers because the jobs I wanted weren’t there but I was damn sure I was going to do everything I could to avoid claiming benefits.
@padraic: Definitely not my first job and I haven’t been on my parents payroll since I was 15. Maybe that was how you got your money? As my dad said “if you want them new runners get up to the fields and pick some spuds”.
@Sean: I studied what I did because it pays well and I studied hard to get the qualifications. I think you have the lazy attitude if you expect to be paid well and not put the effort in. Typical lazy lefty attitude.
Mattoid: I lost my 40k basic salary job in Ireland, went back to college, got two degrees and got a job within two weeks here in the UK of receiving my results. I don’t think I could do much more than that.
@Mr. Jingles…..
I appreciate that you have taken the leap and chosen to relocate to further your career.
However, I suggest that you stay in the UK until you have an attitude adjustment or grow-up.
Honest money is good money. If a person can survive on 27k surrounded by a country and people they love… So be it!
Different strokes for different folks!
Marlon, I fail to see how my attitude needs adjusting just because i have a bit of drive but as you say different strokes.
@Mr. Jingles…
I applaud your successes… Your education, your job and your move to seek employment…. My point about attitude is that you are not being particularly sensitive to people are not able to move and do not have enough skills to make 40K.
Mr Jingles
Are you seriously saying that your parents haven’t supported you since you were 15?
I suspect their opinion may be different…
been working my balls off for the past 18years , and i’m very qualified indeed(Degree Electronic Engineering , Qualified Accounting Tech.)
and currently earn €32k pa .
@Sean….
I’m with you on this…. I came to Ireland with loads of work experience and loads degrees and several certificates. However, when I decided to relocate to Ireland, I knew that my life would change.
My degrees, certifications and experiences doesn’t rank here in Ireland as it does in the US…. Instead of complaining…. I’ve gladly taken the jobs that were available. Yes… I don’t make as much as I did in America…. But I make an honest living…. Like everyone…. I have good days and I have bad days…..
Like you…. I’m appreciative of having a job.
Read four articles down 2,500 people killed in iraq violence in the past 3 months ever get the feeling your not wanted!!!
Then we get two asylum seekers from Iraq well done to the hard working staff in fas big pat on the back
if they refused to put the job up when the employer requested it the headline would be “fas censoring jobs!”
Sandra,
Thats so right, the journal would have a pop at the government no matter what they would of done here.
Why’s that Mr Jingles? Are you getting more money on the dole? Lots of people earn less than that working full time.
I dont believe in FAS. Some people are very genuine. Just like Andy Murray. But I was offered an Internship with Subway and all they wanted from me was to work my ass off free of charge for 2 weeks (they called it training) and then asked me to return for a third week, saying they were not too sure if I could “work up to speed” And I worked as a cook and customer care assistant in McDonalds for 3 years!! Alot of Internships are “slave labour” and employers exploit this system. AND who in their right mind would want to work in Iraq when there is every chance that they could be killed by a bomb or shot. FAS should be closed not companies etc being made close because of lack of fund. Anyway ask the Irish Anglo Banks to give US back our money and that would help the economy immensely..ROBBING GOVERNMENT
Would you get travel expenses?!?!
“– which bares the logo of the Department of Social Protection –” How exactly does it bare it? Is it usually shrouded?
I was relieved to see they offered a salary at all. Not just an extra 50 quid a week. Oh and on emigration its blatantly obviously government policy to encourage it. The number of people leaving which has had no jobs initiative whatsoever in response leads any logic to conclude that this is not an accident. 300000 or so have left. Times 188 social wellfare….lot of money that.
Not a JobBridge? Wohaaa!
Went to fas once just after being made reduntant as I wanted to do courses told me to come back in six months asked for a different course told me I must be working……the are the most useless quango we have and should be all sacked and privatise it .bet it would be done at a fraction of the cost
“many years experience as a machine driver”. Should that not read, “many years experience as a machine gunner”?
Would rather stay in dear old Dublin
Would you be working in the “red zone” or the “green zone”?
Mind your step there son I.E.D ‘s all over the place!
Probably expect you to bring your own digger as well.
Do they cover funeral costs?
very low wages for Iraq, but I do’t understand it , construction companies can hire guys from emerging economies like India that can do that job for 1/4 of that salary.
you’d be mad to accept that job!
It’s called a Hi Mac
Never mind your 360…
If you have a military background I know some chaps who pay up to $500 a day.
I’m intrested…
Hugh, why was my post removed?
That job is da bomb! Sorry ;)
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