Ms Fiona Ward:

As the Deputy said, Ireland, Denmark and the UK, when it was a member of the European Union, did not sign up to the EU directive on inter-company transfers. I assume that was to do with issues concerning the common travel area. We are not giving the issue of whether to sign up to the directive any consideration at the moment. We would have to work with our colleagues in the Department of Justice on that.

On access by the spouses and partners of inter-company transfer permit holders to the State, the way the system is configured at the moment is that our premium permit is the critical skills employment permit. As I said, that is linked to the critical skills occupation list and they are occupations that we know are in shortage in the State. We want those highly-skilled workers when they come to the State to settle here. As a result, there are additional benefits attached to that permit type, including immediate family reunification and the facts that the spouse or partner has broad and wide access to the labour market immediately and also has a fast track to long-term residency. After two years, spouses and partners can work without the need for an employment permit. Those options have not been extended to other permit types, including inter-company transfer. Obviously inter-company transfer permit holders are still on the payroll of the parent company when they are transferred in. They do not have a long-term ambition to stay in the State. While our colleagues in the Department of Justice, who look after family reunification, provide for immediate family reunification in such cases, they do not provide access to the labour market for spouses and partners.

Many of those spouses and partners, as the Deputy said, are highly skilled and may qualify for an employment permit. That sometimes happens. In addition, sometimes when the inter-company transfer permit holder comes over, he or she transfers to a critical skills permit which means his or her spouse or partner can then access the labour market.

That said, one of the recommendations of the review we carried out in 2018 was that we should look at that issue. We have not viewed it yet, but doing so is on my to-do list. We prioritised the drafting of the general scheme but it is certainly something to which we will be giving consideration.