THE ECONOMIC AND Social Research Institute has warned that there are not enough inspectors to properly check for undocumented workers, which can leave immigrants in precarious working situations. 

The irregular employment of Eu and non-EU nationals poses problems for the government when it comes to tax revenue and regulation, the ESRI said today.

According to the ESRI, irregular employment “is broadly understood as employment that is insufficiently covered by formal arrangements either in law or in practice”. 

“For non-EU nationals, working in an irregular situation can create additional precarity, due to difficulties in exercising labour rights and accessing social security,” the institute said in a statement accompanying a study on the issue. 

The research body found that reliable data on the extent of the irregular employment of non-EU nationals “are generally not available, in Ireland or internationally” but said that based on the results of inspections, it occurs “across a variety of sectors”, especially in food services. 

When it comes to inspections, which are run by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), the ESRI said the low number of inspectors “raises concerns” about the effectiveness of efforts to enforce the law in this area. 

“In 2023, 4,727 employment inspection cases were undertaken and 293 breaches of employment permits legislation were detected,” the ESRI report said. 

But this is low when compared to the 191,600 employers registered with Revenue in the state. 

The inspection rate is 2.5%, the ESRI said. 

The study noted that the number of WRC inspectors is planned to increase to 80 during 2024. 

“This is particularly important in light of the steep increase in employment permits issued in recent years, and the planned introduction of a new seasonal employment permit,” the ESRI said. 

Regularisation of undocumented immigrants, meaning granting them permission to reside in the state, is one way to address the issue of irregular employment, the study found. 

“While addressing irregular employment is not found to be a policy priority in itself, the regularisation of undocumented migrants emerged as a pivotal related strategy in Ireland in recent years,” the ESRI said.  

Two such regularisation schemes have been carried out. 

In 2018, a scheme targeting undocumented former students led to 2,253 people being granted residence, and the 2022 Regularisation of Long-Term Undocumented Migrants Scheme had done likewise for 4,617 as of mid-2023. 

Of those 4,617 people, 55% were employed while another 11% were self-employed. Half of those employed were working in wither the hospitality, food and drink, and cleaning/maintenance sectors. 

Non-EU nationals working irregularly have limited access to legal remedies, the ESRI study found.

It pointed to the new Employment Permits Act 2024 as an effort to address some of these issues, but noted that the provisions of the Act are yet to be tested.