Holly Cairns
Question:462. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation the number of employment permits issued to boners of meat from August 2015 to April 2020, in tabular form. [11544/20]
View answerTuesday, 16 June 2020
Questions (462)
Written answers
Ireland operates a managed employment permits system maximising the benefits of economic migration and minimising the risk of disrupting Ireland’s labour market. The system is intended to act as a conduit for key skills which are required to develop enterprise in the State for the benefit of our economy, while simultaneously protecting the balance of the labour market. The system is, by design, vacancy led and driven by the changing needs of the labour market, expanding and contracting in tandem with its inherent fluctuations.
In 2015 an allocation of 200 employment permits was established for the role of Meat Deboner to address the shortages the sector was experiencing with a further allocation of 160 permits made available in 2017. I approved a further quota of 300 last year following the consideration of an evidenced based case from the sector.
To date, 622 General Employment Permits have issued to non-EEA nationals to work as Meat Deboners out of a total quota of 660.