Brophy Solicitors Seminar 'New Student Visa Regime' (November 2010)

In November, we held a seminar on a range of issues, including employment rights of part time workers, issues in family law, and the new student visa regime. We continue to run free seminars and invite any contributions or suggestions of topics for upcoming events. We will also be keeping you updated in future posts on how the new student visa regime is working in practise.

BROPHY SOLICITORS SEMINAR: 'NEW STUDENT VISA REGIME'

This week, we held a free public seminar at the Gresham Hotel, O’Connell Street. The seminar addressed the many queries we have been receiving from clients in respect of the new student visa regime, which is to be implemented on the 1^st January 2011.

Laura Gillen was our first speaker, and she dealt with the employment rights of part time employees, as many students in the State would be in this category of workers. Sarah  McCoy then gave a general outline of the changes to be implemented in the new student regime. In particular, Sarah addressed the new 3 year/7 year restrictions on the period of time which students will be permitted to remain in the State, and the special “timed out ” grace period for certain students. Karen Berkeley then looked into some more specific issues for students that may be affected by the new regime, such as entitlements of dependants of student’s to reside in the State and access to services for students. Karen also discussed the various avenues for students to access the labour market. Kevin Brophy was our last speaker, and he addressed a number of particular issues of family law.

During the questions and answers part of our seminar, we engaged in a very interesting discussion with the attendees. Many practical difficulties concerning the new student regime were raised. One matter of concern raised was that the recommendations do not deal with the issue of students repeating a year of their study course and whether this would be an exceptional circumstance that would warrant an extension of their permission to remain.  Also, it was noted that the 6-month grace period for students is completely exclusionary of any student whose stamp 2 permission expires after the 31^st June 2010. It was generally agreed that the recommendations are quiet unclear in respect of many areas, for example how they will affect accountancy students.

We would like to look further into some of these issues. If any of you or your friends are concerned that you will be effected by the new regime, we would be very interested to hear from you.  Please contact our immigration team to discuss your queries further.

Finally, we would like to thank all our clients past and present who attended the seminar, as well as those who attended our seminar for the first time.  It was great to have a number of representatives present from Immigrant support groups and NGO’s such as Migrant Rights Centre of Ireland and the Vincentian Refugee Centre. So far, we have received good feedback from the attendees, and we will certainly continue to organize further seminars like this in the future. We would be delighted to receive your feed back on what specific topics would be of most interest to you.

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