Dr Tony Dundon of NUI Galway told the Sunday Tribune that onethird of immigrant workers interviewed as part of a new study had paid cash to recruitment agencies based in their own country in order to get a job in Ireland.

"It was found in this study when interviewing four Philippine workers who came to Ireland on employment visas, that a fast-food company with a recognised global brand name contracts the services of a recruitment agency with several branches in southeast Asian countries. This agency charges the job seeker in those countries a fee equivalent to 1,000 plus 500 for the employment permit fees for the first year with the guarantee of finding a job in Ireland in the fast-food company, " Dundon's study concluded.

Under existing legislation it is illegal for employment agencies to charge job seekers a finder's fee, although enforcing this rule has been difficult. Dundon, who conducted the research with two colleagues, Maria Gonzalez Perez and Terrence McDonough, said current policy, which grants the work permit to the employer rather than the migrant worker, makes it easier for rogue employment agencies and traffickers to exploit migrant workers. "The Irish labour market conjures up not an image of a booming Celtic Tiger economy, but rather a reality of near-serfdom and social and economic exclusion, " said Dundon.

In many cases identified in the Galway study these fees meant that immigrant workers had to work for more than a year and a half to repay recruitment agencies. Many immigrant workers interviewed as part of the study said they borrowed money from relatives in the hope that they can send back money in the future.

One Malaysian chef (30) who participated in the study told the researchers, "When one gets the opportunity of leaving the country our parents and other relatives lend or give us the money for the tickets and some money for the travel. They know as soon as we start to earn in euro we'll send their money back to them. It is like an investment for them."

Dundon said that with Ireland's appetite for immigrant labour unabated, employment will be increasingly organised by global entrepreneurial groups "of both a legitimate and criminal nature."

A spokeswoman for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment said that minister Micheal Martin will publish new legislation to improve the regulations of employment agencies in Ireland "before the end of the year."

Martin is examining how to tackle rogue agencies operating outside the EU which send migrant workers to Ireland. Officials acknowledge, however, that introducing effective regulation will be difficult because many foreign-based agencies operate via the internet with no known address.