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No place like home

Written by Peter Tobin

Thursday, 24 February 2011

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The majority of domestic workers in Ireland are female migrant workers who live and work in private homes. Aoife Smith from the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI) says that some of the issues facing these workers are “being paid below legal minimum wage, working excessively long hours, being on call 24-hours a day, no day off, no breaks, no rest periods, no holiday pay, no contracts, no privacy – many share beds with the children they mind.”

Master and servant

“In addition to this, some workers feel abused and harassed by their employers. If they assert their right to leave the exploitative situations, they face becoming homeless, jobless and undocumented as their work permit visa is tied to the employer - which from the outset creates an unequal power imbalance similar to master/servant relationship.”

A survey carried out by the MRCI last year among a sample of domestic workers showed that their average age was 44, 17 per cent are paid the minimum wage, 20 per cent work more than five days a week, 40 per cent work more than 48 hours a week, 30 per cent work Sundays or Bank Holidays without extra pay or a day off in lieu, 42 per cent do not receive payslips, 40 per cent do not have a written contract and, for 22 per cent of them, their employer is not paying their taxes in accordance with the legislation.

In addition to this, 60 per cent of those surveyed said they had experienced exploitation in Ireland as a domestic worker and, in certain severe cases, people were paid between €2 and €5 an hour. Maria believes that, despite her situation, “it’s not all bad”. “Not all employers are bad. I’ve friends who are very lucky with their employers but then I have others who are not so lucky,” she says.

“It’s much better here [Ireland] than other places I’ve worked. I’ve more freedom and more rights and I’m happy with the children. Sometimes, however, it’s very hard. I feel like whatever I do is not enough. She [the employer] comes home and the children are ok but that’s not enough. “Sometimes she’s good but when she’s bad, she’s really bad and I feel like running out of the house and tearing my hair out.”

When asked about her own family and her home, Maria says that someday she will go back. “They say there’s no place like home. And although Ireland has become like a second home to me, I don’t see myself settling here permanently. I have to go home.”

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