From Hugh Gill.
THE Jersey Hospitality Association is currently asking its members to provide accommodation for 500 construction workers due to arrive in Jersey to work on the new Harcourt development of the underpass and island site car park.

Can the Island really cope with this kind of influx? Will they pay their income tax and social security contributions while they are here? This has not always happened, where temporary workers from abroad have been paid in another country, which then benefits from their dues instead of Jersey, while we provide them with the infrastructure here at our expense.

Also, will their period of stay begin a qualification period for Jersey residency? If they bring cars, under the existing legislation they can drive around on foreign plates and foreign licences for up to a year, giving the States and honorary police many a headache and serious concerns about insurance. Also, what will be the status of any offspring they happen to father (or mother) while they are temporarily resident?

More relevant a question perhaps, in the light of the credit crisis, is whether this huge and costly project is what we should be doing at this time, and whether it might not be best to reconsider. The requirement for so many workers from abroad added to the economic damage of two years or more of disruption on the main arterial road through town beggars belief.

A well-known song goes something like: ‘We are reviewing the situation, but I think we’d better think it out again’.
Three Corners,
Spring Grove,
St Lawrence.