Managing Migration in Ireland - European Commission - Europa

92studying. Foreign students accepted at universities but first taking preparatorycourses such as English are now barred from working until they enrol in theuniversity, and those enrolled in short-term courses can stay in Ireland a maximum18 months.Closely related to foreign student workers is the working holidaymakerprogramme, which permits non-EEA nationals aged 18 to 30 from Australia,Canada, New Zealand and Hong Kong (SAR) to stay in Ireland one year and work upto three months for any Irish employer. Some 3,000 working holiday-maker visaswere issued in 2003, and Irish employers may request one-year work permits forthose working holiday-makers they wish to employ for a longer period.6.8 Migration Trade OffsImmigration is often characterized as “good” or “bad.” Such an approach is oftenmisleading because immigration, like many other public policy choices, is moreoften a contest between competing goods. Immigration has benefits and costs,and thus the proper approach is to enumerate, analyse and debate these benefitsand costs, then determine which benefits get higher priority while at the sametime minimizing costs. Most industrial countries have accepted the need to debatepriorities between competing goods, such as whether low inflation or lowunemployment deserves higher priority, or whether freer trade or protectingworkers should be favoured.The use of migrants in agriculture provides an example. Consumers want to paylow prices for food, but most also want seasonal farm workers, like other workers,to have decent wages and working conditions. The trade off is thus between lowfood prices and the competing good of better wages and conditions for farmworkers. For example, what would happen if the influx of migrant workers wereslowed, farm wages rose, and the increase in farm labour costs were passedthrough to consumers? Experience in the United States shows that for a typicalhousehold, a 40 per cent increase in farm labour costs translates into a two tothree per cent increase in retail prices. 111 At the same time, farm wage increasesmay lead to farm productivity improvements, so that consumer prices maydecrease rather than increase. There is no easy answer to whether the savings onfresh produce due to the presence of migrants is worthwhile. The migrants arebetter off in high-wage labour markets, earning five to ten times more than theywould at home. Landowners are also better off, since lower farm worker wagestend to be capitalized into higher land prices. Consumers of these commoditiespay less for fresh produce. The critical question is whether these benefits are morevaluable than having farm work performed and rewarded like other work.There is no easy way to balance the tradeoffs between the competing goods in theinflation-employment or the trade-jobs equation, but policy making can beimproved with more accurate information on what level of unemployment triggershigher inflation, or how many jobs are lost as a result of freer trade (or freermigration). As Ireland continues as an immigration country, debates about the111. For a full discussion, see Martin (1993).