By RAUL V. GONZALES & DAVID CAGAHASTIAN
MANILA — Labor and Employment Secretary Patricia A. Sto. Tomas yesterday welcomed the Irish government’s initiative to strengthen its capacity to attract and retain skilled workers, especially nurses and professionals by giving their spouses easier and greater access to employment in Ireland.
"Our embassy in London informed the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) that Ireland has officially announced on Feb. 18 the introduction of new arrangements for spouses of skilled non-European Economic Areas (EEA) nationals," Sto. Tomas said, citing a letter of DFA Assistant Secretary Jaime Yambao on the development favorable to the continued employment of Filipino nurses and other professionals in Ireland.
The labor chief said the new arrangements were announced by Ireland’s Tanaiste (deputy prime minister) and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Harney.
Sto. Tomas said the new arrangements will benefit the estimated 9,000 nurses and other medical professionals, construction professionals, and IT specialists working under the Work Visa/Work Authorization Scheme Ireland had introduced in June 2000.
"I propose to introduce these new arrangements confined to the spouses of persons under the Work Visas/Work Authorization, certain intra-company transferees and spouses of certain academics and researchers. In cases where some medical professionals are still on work permit, these will be dealt with on a case to case basis," Harney said.
Harney had voiced particular concern for the nurses who are mainly Filipinos, stressing the lack of "automatic rights" to work in Ireland among spouses of foreign workers was "most acute in relation to some 4,500 highly trained nurses who do not face this difficulty in other countries," Sto. Tomas said.
"Ireland, in changing this situation, had joined the ranks of other countries like the United Kingdom that grant similar working rights to the spouses of their skilled foreign workers," the labor chief said.
According to The Irish Times, a major daily newspaper in Ireland, the 5,000 Filipino nurses now employed in Ireland’s hospitals will be the single largest group that will benefit from such humane arrangement, Sto. Tomas said.
"Nevertheless, statistical figures show that despite the 5,000 nurses, the Filipinos still comprise a minority among the foreign nationals working in Ireland," Sto. Tomas said.
