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

I will certainly check out who is paying for the permits. According to the information we have, however, it is normally employers. Under the previous legislation, where an application was made by an employee, he or she did not go through the labour market test. That may have provided something of an incentive for some of the provisions not to be fully applied because of the way in which the application was made. The current situation is more robust in that regard.

In terms of sectoral permits, we are providing the special skills category. People with special skills will have a special permit and terms that apply in the particular circumstances. In the case of other permits where there is a specific labour market rule test and one wants to ensure that employers are compliant with the various requirements set out in law, there is good reason to disallow sector permits in a broad range of sectors. We have deliberately set out different types of permit with different conditions applying. The old green card had more relaxed terms attached to it.

My Department intends to conduct a review of fees across all schemes later in the year. The MRCI will be consulted in that regard.