Two healthcare workers, who worked in nursing homes throughout the pandemic, have recently been denied leave to remain in Ireland.
They have both been instructed to leave the country voluntarily or face deportation.
"I was shattered," one of them said of hearing the news, "I was thinking that because of the pandemic, the way we worked, the way we risked our lives...I was going to get permission to remain."
She and her employer spoke to RTÉ News, but both asked not to be named.
Her employer described how the nursing home staff had worked through difficult times during the height of the crisis.
He said: "Thinking back to March and April, we had one week where were lost five people... we had 30 residents test positive at one stage here, though the majority had no symptoms, and we also had ten members of staff that tested positive."
Despite understandable levels of worry among some staff, he said the healthcare worker in question simply got on with her job.
He said: "She gowned up, she was on the frontline, she went into rooms where there were people with Covid positive results and she barrier nursed like the rest of us here."
Early in the pandemic, to avoid the risk of transferring Covid-19 from the direct provision centre where she lived to the nursing home or vice versa, the healthcare worker moved into temporary hotel accommodation provided by the HSE.
She explained: "It was hard, for two of three months I was the only person staying there, just by myself in the whole place. I didn't have any cooking facilities, so the only thing I had was a microwave.
"I don't regret it... I love my work. Every day when I go home, I feel that I am making a difference to someone's life."
Her boss says he would hate to lose her.
He said: "We'd absolutely love to keep her here, we'd feel her loss if she was gone."
He also highlighted how recruiting staff is particularly difficult at the moment.
He said: "If I advertise for healthcare assistants, there were times when I would have gotten a huge response, nowadays, and I think it's because of Covid, the response is very very small.
"I put out an add a couple of weeks ago and I think I got three responses."
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The Taoiseach has requested further details on cases of the healthcare workers and told the Dáil that he will raise the matter with the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee.
The matter was raised in the Dáil by People Before Profit TD Brid Smith.
Mr Martin responded by saying he would follow up on their cases.
He said: "I don't have the details of the cases but if you can send them to me and to my office, I will certainly see what I can do to engage with the Minister in relation to them."
Ms Smith said that she believes no-one should be deported during a pandemic and she described it as "particularly inhumane to deport people who have been on the front line fighting to save our lives".
She said that there also "has to be consideration for the need for us to hang onto every frontline worker we can".
Ms Smith said she had spoken to one of the women in question who she said worked "right through the pandemic, looking after the elderly in a care home."
She said: "We are threatening to deport this woman and other care workers and indeed a slew of immigrants in this country in the middle of a pandemic."
Back in June Independent TD Catherine Connolly asked the then Minister for Justice Charlie Flannagan in a Parliamentary Question about "granting permission to remain" to such healthcare workers.
Mr Flannagan replied that those who fail in a claim for International Protection may seek humanitarian leave to remain in which a person's character and conduct is taken into consideration.
This is the type of status that the two healthcare workers were recently refused.
Social Democrats spokesperson on children Jennifer Whitmore said she did not know what weight the Minister for Justice had given to the contribution they had made during the Covid-19 crisis, when accessing their applications, but she "would like to see that it is taken into consideration."
Others have called for all such healthcare workers to be given permission to remain, or as Sinn Féin has suggested, a work permit that would allow them to continue working and living here.
Sinn Féin's Justice and Equality spokesperson Martin Kenny said: "It is quite normal for everyone in the direct provision system and people who are seeking international protection, when they get to the end of the laborious process, there are always going to be some who are refused.
"However, when we have a situation where we have people working in the healthcare profession, particularly in nursing homes, who are on the frontline and who have made a huge contribution to the effort to combat Covid19, I think there has to be a recognition of that.
"I think the first step in the process would be that they would be immediately issued with a work permit and a right to stay and do the invaluable work that they are doing... and that would lead to them having a right to stay as a worker in Ireland."
In a report published in August, the Irish Refugee Council called for "permission to remain to all people in the protection process, who are unsuccessful in their refugee or subsidiary protection application, and who have worked in the healthcare sector during the pandemic as a recognition of their work and contribution to Irish society."
It is a call it is now reiterating.
The Movement of Asylum Seekers has highlighted how such a scheme was introduced in Canada in August, and spokesperson Bulelani Mfaco says the Minister should go further.
He said: "The Department of Justice can, should and must recognise the contribution of migrant workers during the pandemic and actually give leave to remain to all migrants, irrespective of their current immigration status."
The Department of Justice told RTÉ News that it does and should consider "work in a healthcare setting" when assessing applications for "leave to remain" in this country.
In a statement, the department said that while it does not comment on individual cases - each case is examined in detail on its individual merits, taking all factors into account.
It also said that Deportation Orders can be amended or revoked by the Minister for Justice under Section 3 (11) of the Immigration Act 1999 and that the Minister considers all such requests made by individuals concerned.
It said that "humanitarian factors, employment records and other factors will be considered by the Minister as part of this process."
It added that the Department "will of course be taking a pragmatic approach to matters such as deportation in the context of the pandemic."
"Decisions to repatriate are not taken lightly and it is only as a last resort that enforced repatriation by the State is carried out," it concluded.
