Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 September 2022
37. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the steps that he is taking to fast-track the processing of critical skills employment permits relating to healthcare professionals for the nursing home sector. [43901/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe employment permits system is designed to facilitate the entry of appropriately skilled non-EEA nationals to fill skills and/or labour shortages, in circumstances where there are no suitably qualified Irish/EEA nationals available to undertake the work and that the shortage is a genuine one. The system is managed through the use of lists designating highly skilled and ineligible occupations.
On 14 June 2021, following a review of the employment permit occupation lists, changes to the employment permit system were announced, to address skills and labour shortages in the healthcare and nursing home sector. Following this review, the occupation of Nursing Auxiliary or Assistant (Health Care Assistant) in hospital/nursing home settings became eligible for a General Employment Permit from that date. As the occupation of Health Care Assistant is not on the Critical Skills Occupations List it is not eligible for a Critical Skills Employment Permit unless the remuneration on offer is €64,000 per annum or more.
As regards processing times, following the implementation of an internal plan of action which increased resources and implemented more efficient methods of processing applications, the Employment Permits Unit has reduced the number of applications awaiting processing from about 11,000 in January 2022 to about 2,836 today, despite further strong demand in 2022. As new staff were trained processing times have fallen from 21 weeks to 4-5 weeks depending on the permit type. My Department plans to maintain processing times for all applications at approximately this current level, on the assumption that demand remains at current levels.
