This act was enacted and came into effect on 10 April 2003.  For the first time, it makes an offence to employ certain categories of nationals without a work permit or the permission of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform.  It is also an offence for these nationals to enter or be in employment in the State.  The penalties for both categories of offenders are:

·          On summary conviction, a fine of up to €3,000.00 and/or up to 12 months’ imprisonment, and

·          On conviction on indictment, a fine of up to €250,000.00 and/or up to ten years’ imprisonment.

If an offence is committed by a body corporate and ‘is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of or to be both attributable to any neglect on the part of the person being a director, manager, secretary or other officer of the body corporate’, that person is also guilty of an offence and may be similarly penalised.

Nationals of eight of the EU accession states – the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and the Slovak Republic – will be exempted from the requirement to obtain work permits for the duration of the transition period leading up to the union’s enlargement.  This begins in May 2004.  The remaining accession states of Malta and Cyprus are excluded).  However, if the labour market experiences ‘disturbance’, the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment may by the order re-impose the requirement to obtain work permits on accession state nationals for the duration of the transition period.  Such an order will not apply to any accession state nationals who have already been in paid employment for longer than six weeks.  IN any application for work permits, the Minister is to give preference to applicants from the accession states in respect of which an order is in force. 

The act also provides for search powers on application to a District Court Judge and arrests without warrant on suspicion of obstruction.  The obstruction of a search is an offence punishable by a fine and/or imprisonment on summary conviction. 

The explanatory memorandum for the bill notes that giving free access to the labour market to accession state nationals will mean a reduction of around €4 million in work permit processing fees received, but also a corresponding reduction in work permit applications ‘thus facilitating a better customer service and better quality control’.