Thomas Gould
Question:189. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the schemes available for employers looking to recruit outside of the State. [45759/21]
View answerThursday, 23 September 2021
Questions (189)
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 regime is designed to accommodate the arrival of non-EEA nationals to fill skills and labour gaps for the benefit of our economy, in the short to medium term. However, this objective must be balanced by the need to ensure that there are no suitably qualified Irish/EEA nationals available to undertake the work and that the shortage is a genuine one. 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.
The employment permit system is managed through the operation of the critical skills and the ineligible occupations lists which determine employments that are either in high demand or are ineligible for consideration for an employment permit. These lists undergo twice yearly evidence-based reviews and include a public consultation process and extensive consultation with other Government Departments through the Interdepartmental Group on Economic Migration Policy.
The State’s general policy is to promote the sourcing of labour and skills needs from within the workforce of Ireland, the European Union and other EEA states. Employment opportunities which arise in Ireland should, in the main, be offered to suitably skilled Irish and other EEA nationals, and should only be offered to non-EEA nationals who possess those skills and where no suitable candidate emerges from within the EEA to fill the vacancy. This policy also fulfils our obligations under the Community Preference principles of membership of the EU.
There are nine different types of employment permits to facilitate various different employment scenarios. The employment permit type specifically designed to address key skills shortages is the Critical Skills Employment Permit while the General Employment Permit is the primary permit used by the State to attract non-EEA nationals in occupations of a more general nature occupations where it can be demonstrated, following the application of a range of criteria including the Labour Market Needs Test (LMNT), that the employer was unable to fill the position from the Irish and EEA labour market and the occupation does not feature on the ineligible list.
My Department operates a Trusted Partner Initiative to ease the administrative burden on employers/connected persons/EEA contractors in expansion mode/start-ups and high-volume users of the employment permits regime. A Trusted partner employer will have reduced paperwork for permit applications and a faster turnaround in processing permit applications.
Employment permit policy is part of the response to addressing skills deficits which exist and are likely to continue into the medium term, but it is not intended over the longer term to act as a substitute for meeting the challenge of up-skilling the State’s resident workforce, with an emphasis on the process of lifelong learning, and on maximising the potential of EEA nationals to fill our skills deficits.