A case study of social work mobility in Ireland

The phenomenon of transnational social worker mobility can be viewed against the background of the ambition to internationalise social work, dating from 1928 (International Conference of Social Work, Paris, 1928 – see the International Federation of Social Workers [IFSW] website, available at: http://ifsw.org/news/milestones-in-the-early-history-of-the-ifsw/). Such mobility occurs in a context of the increased global movements of people. Mobility has been shown to be a fluid process impacted by political and economic factors, as well as national and regional policies in a globalised world (Bartley et al, 2012; Williams and Graham, 2014). International mobility is not a universal right. In the case of the European Union (EU), one of the foundational principles and ambitions of the European project has been the free movement of workers between the member states as part of the concept of the Common Market. However, significant differences have always existed between mobility within the member states and from outside.

Pan-European contextual factors

Since the international war on terror following the 2001 ‘9/11’ attacks on the US, a confluence of separate but intertwined global events have thrown established European migration policies into disarray. These events include the global financial crisis of 2007/08 and the subsequent Eurozone crisis, which saw the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and other indebted peripheral European states (Spain, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus) enter a ‘bailout’ programme provided by a ‘troika’ of international lenders comprising the European Commission (EC), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB). Financial assistance was accompanied by the imposition of stringent austerity measures in all cases. Ireland exited its bailout programme in 2013 but the legacy of austerity endures across health, social services and other sectors.

More critically, the Syrian and Iraqi wars and resultant humanitarian refugee crises have given rise to severe tensions between European partners on the issue of migration. The threat to the Schengen passport-free zone for Europeans and the tightening of European borders in the wake of the Daesh terrorist attacks in Belgium, France and Germany since November 2015 are also having a profound impact.