Ms Una Fitzpatrick:

I thank Senator Mac Lochlainn for the question. Until six months ago, the system was still somewhat bureaucratic but working well. Technology companies which are trusted partners, be that an Enterprise Ireland or an IDA Ireland member client, were assured they would have an answer to a work permit application within two weeks. At that point, they can go on to obtain a visa. That process takes nine weeks, therefore, the best case scenario is ten to 11 weeks. That was not great but we could live with it. Business likes certainty and if there is certainty around those sort of dates, it can work to those.

In recent months, however, the feedback from companies has been that even the processing time for trusted partners has slipped to eight to 12 weeks. There was an update on the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation website regarding processing times, apologising for the delays, advising that it had received a high number of applications and that the current waiting times were five weeks for trusted partners and 14 weeks for standard applications. The feedback from our member companies is that the waiting times are significantly higher. In terms of the consequences of those delays, job offers are falling through and significant costs are being incurred by both multinational companies and indigenous software technology companies. Companies are using many third parties companies to process applications, thereby increasing costs.

The feedback on this to their corporate headquarters is particularly negative in that they are asking the reason that is not happening at the moment. We have been in touch with the Department through the Tech/Life Ireland review, which is a process that looks at attracting people into Ireland, specifically for the technology sector. The feedback was that something happened within the Department - we never got to the bottom of what it was - but that it was working to resolve it.

The fact that this has occurred in the past six months has led to a number of concerns on the part of companies. They first wanted it amended but asked if this will happen again. Ultimately, that begins a debate on the question, why Ireland? It has led to many questions being pushed back. A company in Cork could not hire one key figure, which led to 200 jobs being moved to Prague. Those are the impactful case studies. I make the point that it might seem like one hire or one application but it has massive ramifications in terms of industry because that person could be leading an entire team, and that team will go with that person.

Our request is that there would be an immediate fix to the current problem. In addition, having both the Departments of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and Justice and Equality dealing with work permits and visas seems to be a highly bureaucratic system. The recommendation from members is that the EU blue card system and other systems throughout Europe are far more efficient and attractive for companies. On a competitive basis alone, therefore, it would be worth investigating.