Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My first question is for Mr. Carroll. What level of turnover does the industry experience with employees who come in on work permits? This is in the context of the suggestion by MRCI that we should move away from restricting the right of a person on a work permit to move jobs. It is a reasonable request in that if a person is tied to his or her employer, his or her ability to exercise his or her employment rights will be restricted. I would be interested in hearing MII's response to that.

I am interested in whether we should move toward more of a compact when work permits become a significant feature of a sector, such as looking at what percentage of payroll is devoted to upskilling and what number of apprenticeships are taken on in a year. Would MII be up for that?

Turning to Ms McGinley, does she not see a genuine seasonality to some work like fruit picking? Maybe it is not that extensive but there would be some people whom it suits to come in and do seasonal work and perhaps do so on repeated occasions. Is expecting a full work permit to be granted for someone coming in seasonally not an undue burden on an employer who really wants to get his or her fruit picked or their harvest brought in? Would it be better to talk about repeat seasonality perhaps or some sort of continuity?

On access to the WRC for the undocumented, what is the legal prevention in this regard? Is it that the WRC will not recognise them or a fear that going to the commission will blow a person's cover?

Finally, on an issue Ms McGinley raised, I see things like the right to move employment as an employment right and the right of a spouse to work as an employment right but family reunification gets into a much wider range of issues than are provided for in this Bill or, indeed, by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

Has the Department of Justice been approached to explore some of these elements of inequity of treatment? I presume it would be the primary Department looking at family reunification.