Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With regard to amendment No. 10, the Senators will be aware that it is my intention that all the conditions pertaining to the issue of a permit under the new reactivation scheme be mandatory. The four mandatory conditions are designed to deter abuses of the proposed scheme, and I believe they are proportional and reasonable, given the advantages conferred by this permit type on the holder. If the Senator's amendments were added to the list of four existing mandatory requirements, it would result in an additional mandatory provision that few foreign nationals would be able to meet, that is, only foreign nationals who have entered into civil proceedings provided for in the new section 2B inserted into the Act of 2003, which would significantly narrow the field of potential applicants under this permit type.

If the Senator's intention in tabling the amendment is to allow a further permit type, that is, those who have initiated legal proceedings under the new section 2B, I would emphasise that my intention in the creation of this type of employment permit is to facilitate those foreign nationals who have fallen out of the employment permit system to re-enter employment in line with employment permits legislation. It is not a back door for illegal economic migrants who have not been or would not be granted employment permits under current legislation.

Invariably, some future litigants under section 2B will be entitled to apply for the reactivation scheme without any such amending provision as suggested by the Senators, while others would never and could never avail themselves of any permit, having always been illegal in the State.

There is another possible unintended consequence in the Senator's amendment, which is a flood of civil proceedings being brought by litigants solely or primarily to take advantage of the chance to convert their illlegal status into legal status. Incentivising such litigation by the promise of a permit is certainly not what I intended by bringing forward a compensation provision. For all those reasons, I cannot accept the Senator's amendment.