Migrant Rights Centre Ireland and the Irish Independent

The Press Ombudsman has decided that the Irish Independent has made an offer of remedial action sufficient to resolve a complaint by the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland that three articles published in that newspaper on 12 October 2010 breached Principles 1 (Truth and Accuracy) and 2 (Distinguishing Fact and Comment) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines.

The articles in question were a news article headlined “Thousands of workers imported as jobless rises”, an opinion article entitled “Labour has always flown towards work opportunities”, and an editorial entitled “Permission to Work.”

The Migrant Rights Centre Ireland complained that the articles were significantly inaccurate and misleading because they had neglected to mention that renewals of work permits represented the majority of work permits issued to non-EU nationals, and had failed to make a number of other distinctions and qualifications it considered were important. In response, the newspaper accepted that the complainant had made a number of salient points, and offered to publish his criticism of the articles as a letter to the editor. This offer was rejected by the complainant, who maintained that a correction and a published right of reply was required.

The subject matter of the three articles involved five separate categories of employment permits and complex employment legislation. The headlines to the news and comment articles involved were technically accurate, in that more than 2,000 of the 6,500 work permits issued in the period in question were first-time permits. The articles concerned, however, did not clarify the fact that slightly more than 4,000 of these permits were issued, or re-issued, without a Labour Market Test, to people who were already working in this country prior to 2010; nor did it explain an apparent discrepancy in the figures quoted, which raised a doubt about the analysis included in the article. This omission and discrepancy, and some of the terminology used in the news report in particular, may have misled some readers. However, this possibility was not so great that, in the opinion of the Press Ombudsman, it could not have been satisfactorily resolved by the newspaper’s offer to publish prominently a substantial letter from the organisation in its ‘Letters to the Editor’ page.

On the balance of the evidence, therefore, the newspaper concerned was not unreasonable in proposing this as an alternative resolution of the complaints under the Principles of the Code cited rather than acceding to the complainant’s request for a formal correction and a lengthy right of reply article.

23 March 2011