Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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176. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the extent to which his attention has been drawn to the difficulties experienced by various sectors in the economy in obtaining the necessary levels of staff in the aftermath of Covid-19; if he has in mind specific actions to address this issue sector by sector; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44168/21]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The past year has been a difficult year for most businesses, and some sectors have been more severely impacted by public health restrictions and for a more prolonged period. Our Economic Recovery Plan, published in June, commits to ongoing support for people and businesses to make a full return to work. Assisting businesses and people in those sectors where the impacts of the pandemic have been most severe is prioritised in the plan in a targeted way. Our Economic Recovery Plan also sets out medium term policies to underpin a sustainable and balanced recovery and a commitment to invest in infrastructure and reforms to enhance our capability and long-term capacity for growth.

The Government is committed to creating the right environment for a jobs-led recovery and to getting people back to work as quickly as possible. While numbers in receipt of the pandemic unemployment payment continue to reduce, significant numbers of people remain in receipt of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment in Accommodation and Food Service Activities (27,545), Wholesale and Retail Trade (22,434) and Administrative and support service activities (16,504), and construction (11,725) sectors.

Our Economic Recovery Plan set an ambitious target to exceed pre-crisis employment levels by having 2.5 million people in work by 2024 and in more productive and resilient jobs. The Plan commits to further strengthen Ireland’s Skills Framework to ensure people are supported to secure and remain in sustainable and quality employment. As the PUP is phased out, helping people back to work and reducing the risk of labour market scarring and entrenched long-term unemployment is a priority for Government. This will be achieved through a combination of upskilling and reskilling with substantially accelerated training and skills opportunities and increased activation capacity through Pathways to Work 2021-2025.

The Action Plan for Apprenticeship 2021-2025, which targets 10,000 apprenticeship registrations per annum by 2025, is an important mechanism to address skills shortages in particular sectors. Retail Ireland’s Skillnet Apprenticeship in Retail Supervision and the National Hairdressing Apprenticeship are good examples of programmes providing job-ready qualified professionals in those sectors. My colleagues, Simon Harris, TD, Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, and Niall Collins, TD, Minister of State for Skills and Further Education, recently announced a further extension of the Apprenticeship Incentivisation Scheme until the end of December 2021 which provides financial support for employers who register apprentices to a national apprenticeship.

The pandemic has accelerated previously existing trends and shifts which have potential to significantly reshape business models and sectors. Many of these changes are likely to be permanent with potential to fundamentally alter Ireland’s economic outlook. Not all previous jobs will return, while capacity constraints may emerge very quickly in certain areas. The twin decarbonisation and digitalisation transition and associated behavioural changes will profoundly alter the economy.

Embracing these transitions will also open up substantial new opportunities for businesses and support significant job creation. Identifying and developing the skills required in growing sectors of the economy is critical to Ireland’s competitiveness. The Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN) advises the Government on projected skills requirements across the Irish economy and makes recommendations on how existing education and training systems and delivery mechanisms, as well as other sources of skills supply, can be improved.

Innovation, collaboration and knowledge are the cornerstone of a sustainable growth model and underpin the agility needed to respond to an evolving sectoral landscape. The Government is committed to creating the right environment for a jobs-led recovery by helping business become more resilient and agile, by increasing Ireland’s competitiveness, and through a focus on expanding sectors. The education, training and research sectors will be supported to respond to the challenge.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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177. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the degree to which he has received communications from employers throughout the country who are experiencing difficulty in recruiting staff as Covid-19 restrictions are eased; if his attention has been drawn to the need for the expeditious processing of work permit applications or the use of other methods in order to address the situation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44169/21]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The 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 operation of the critical skills and the ineligible occupations lists which are subject to twice yearly evidence-based review. These reviews are guided by available research undertaken by the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN), and the Skills and the Labour Market Research Unit (SLMRU) in SOLAS and a public consultation where a range of stakeholders, sector representatives and individual employers make submissions seeking to make changes to the system. Account is taken of education outputs, sectoral upskilling and training initiatives and known contextual factors such as Brexit and, in the current context, COVID-19 and their impact on the labour market. Consideration is also taken of the views of the relevant policy Departments and the Economic Migration Interdepartmental Group, chaired by my Department.

A review is currently underway at present, 26 submissions have been received from a range of sectors and stakeholders. It is expected that this will be finalised late September/early October.

My Department has seen a significant increase in applications for employment permits this year. To the end of August, some 14,624 applications were received, representing a 35% increase over the same period in 2020 (10,772) and a 19% increase on 2019 (12,276). Some 9,526 employment permits were issued over this period.

Processing times have been impacted by this increase in demand but also because of the HSE cyber-attack. As a result, employment permit applications associated with the July Doctors rotation (which occurs twice yearly in January and July) had to be submitted either manually or through other nonstandard methods. This resulted in a significant additional administrative burden in dealing with these applications, requiring staff to be temporarily reassigned to assist in the process and had a direct impact on wider processing times for other permit applications.

It is important to point out that when set against other international employment permit regimes, Ireland continues to compare extremely favourably, even at current processing times. However, my Department is very conscious of the recent lengthening of time-frames for processing Employment Permit applications and is taking a range of measures to reduce the current backlog as quickly as possible and is confident that they will bear fruit over the coming weeks and months. It advises employers to take current timelines into account as part of their recruitment plans.

My Department updates the employment permit processing timelines on its website on a weekly basis and regularly issues updates on relevant employment permit matters to Trusted Partners such as the recent update on employment permit processing timelines.

I and my officials meet with sector representatives, individual employers and other stakeholders to discuss a range of issues, including recruitment challenges, in relation to economic migration policy and the employment permit regime.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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178. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the extent to which he expects staff shortages in the construction sector to be met with particular reference to the need to address such deficiencies in full at an early date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44170/21]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN) is the independent, non-statutory body that advises the Government on projected skills requirements across the Irish economy and makes recommendations on how existing education and training systems and delivery mechanisms, as well as other sources of skills supply, can be improved.

My Department provides research and secretarial support to the Group, and as part of the national skills architecture, the EGFSN's analysis helps inform the work of the National Skills Council, which advises on the prioritisation of identified skills needs and the allocation of resources across the education and training system to address these needs.

As part of its 2020 and 2021 work programme, the EGFSN has engaged in a series of studies examining the nature and quantity of skills needs across the wider Built Environment sector over the medium to long term, in line with the Government's ambitions across housing, infrastructural development and built environment energy efficiency.

These include the 2020 report, Building Future Skills- The Demand for Skills in Ireland's Built Environment Sector to 2030; the forthcoming paper Labour Demand Estimates for Ireland's National Housing Targets, 2021-2030, the EGFSN's contribution to the development of Housing for All; and the forthcoming report on Skills for the Zero Carbon Economy, which amongst other areas examines the skills needs arising from the Government's residential retrofit targets and the construction skills needs resulting from Renewable Energy projects.

Through the EGFSN Secretariat's close engagement with relevant stakeholders, this analysis, which includes detailed breakdown and forecasts of skills needs at occupational level, as well as recommendations aimed at enhancing skills supply across the Built Environment sector, is informing skills planning across Government, industry and the education and training system, to ensure that the Government's ambitions in the construction space are delivered upon.

This includes informing the broader campaign aimed at promoting construction career opportunities, which is being undertaken by the Construction Sector Group, representative of the sector's key public and private stakeholders; the alignment of education and training programmes and graduate output by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, its agencies, and Higher Education and Further Education and Training providers; the transitioning, where feasible, of the unemployed into Construction sector roles under the new Pathways to Work, 2021-2025 strategy; and the continued responsiveness of the Employment Permit system to identified skills needs across the Construction sector.