Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was having my own technical difficulties. I thank the Cathaoirleach and the committee for dealing with this issue . Fair play to Mr. Lynn. This is an issue about which we have all heard at constituency level. I got it from Mr. Lynn. There are a number of hotels and other businesses that are under pressure and that would have contacted me in the past while. We all know the importance of the hospitality sector to this State. It is a no-brainer that we have a problem. We have all done those clientelist fixes and gone to people within the Department, Ministers and whomever and seen those issues sorted. The fact that people are coming to us in the first place, however, indicates that the system is not fit for purpose. We all know there has been an insufficient amount done in the context of workforce planning and ensuring that people with the necessary skills are available.

I am looking for a very quick synopsis from Mr. Lynn of his asks. He is looking to move chefs onto the critical skills list but he also referred to the third level stipulation and some other difficulties. On the ask with regard to taking the Ministers and other stakeholders in, it is not that I am looking for the issue to be taken away from this committee, but the enterprise committee or somebody has to deal with this issue because there is an element of madness involved. This is another of those issues we have batted over and back. One would have thought the system would have caught it and fixed it, but it has not.