Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government intends to ensure that we opt in to the EU directive from 10 February to sometime in June. We will be working with the European Commission in order to ensure that we fully comply with that process. I would not expect that we would be making any premature decisions prior to our entry into the EU framework but I would expect that from June the new regime will be firmly established and people who have been in the system for a period of nine months will then be in a position to apply to work. Also, by the expiry of that time, we will have completed our discussions and deliberations across the implementation group with the Department of Business, Enterprise and Employment and other stakeholders and we will have arrived at a list of categories which will be available for all applicants to consider having regard to their own skills set.