Dr. Alan Power:

In 2018 or 2019, the then Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation published the review of economic migration policy. There is a new set-up in place with the interdepartmental group on economic migration whereby for the biannual review of the employment permits lists, an interdepartmental group meets, including representatives of various Departments. Submissions come in via private submission by industry representative organisations or are made by the Department which is the lead for the sector. They make the case and provide the evidence to say something is urgent and certain measures have to be introduced. Liberalisation of the list would help enhance that. To ensure it is firmly and robustly evidence-based and responding to an economic need, it is good that, for instance, the Department of Health will be there for certain construction submissions or the Department of Transport for anything in the logistics field. The reforms put in place off the back of that review have definitely enhanced the responsiveness of the system.

Again, however, as for ensuring the longer term sustainability of the skills supply, we need to ensure that whatever skills we seek to import, we put in place the measures to ensure we build up a secure supply of those skills at the same time.