Ms Fiona Ward:

It is not that onerous to change. The processor gets the information from the permit holder and he or she might contact the old employer. It does happen that people move within the 12 months. I do not think it is a huge issue to be able to change, but if Deputy Bruton has any instances he wishes to raise, we would be happy to have a look at them.

Regarding sectoral permits, what is covered in the general scheme is that we have a vacancy-led scheme. The primary policy of the Government is to recruit from within Ireland and across the EEA and it is only in circumstances where an employer cannot find the available resources within the State or the EEA that he or she can recruit from outside the EEA. For every employment permit, there is a written contract of employment. Moving to a sectoral-type arrangement would completely change the way the permit system is operated, but it could also serve to undermine the need to ensure that the domestic labour market or the market within the EEA is first tested before we move to other areas. It could also lead to increased challenges in terms of protecting the rights of the migrant worker. At the moment, a worker has a written contract of employment which details salary, the maximum hours worked, etc. We looked to other jurisdictions to see whether they had a similar sectoral type of arrangement and we could not identify any jurisdiction that had such an arrangement. In all jurisdictions across Europe and outside Europe the employer-employee link is in place. The only exception is Germany where it is linked to the type of occupation covered by the higher and critical skills employment permit and when a job is found the link between the employer and employee is put in place. In Australia, very specific qualifications are required for it and, again, it is linked to occupations in very remote areas of Australia. We could not find a jurisdiction where it was operating and working.