Mr. Paddy Lynn:

Deputy Ó Murchú has got the point across exactly right. It needs to be dealt with. It has been batted around. Who is in charge? I only mentioned the issue slightly, and Paul Clancy of the Vintners Federation of Ireland raised it too, but there has not been a study done on what the figures are. To be fully open, I might have made the 10,000 figure up. I do not know. I might have heard it somewhere else. Whose figures are we dealing with? The figure of 260,000 people working in the industry was mentioned by one party and 180,000 mentioned by another. There was a 40,000 shortfall and a 50,000 shortfall. We do not know where it i,s but it is definitely an issue. Every hospitality company in the country is struggling with staffing issues. There are not any defining figures on that but we need to find them. In the meantime, we can adjust some of the legislative barriers to fix the issue. There are only so many positions in a kitchen that need to be filled. There were five positions added to the general list, which were executive head chef, head chef, sous-chef, senior chef de partie and chef de partie. That is great. Unfortunately, commis chef is not on that list. The €30,000 threshold is the issue there.

One can pay, but people are not paying commis chefs more than €14.79 per hour. That is another conversation perhaps. Senator Buttimer referred to getting young people involved in the sector. They have to start at commis chef level. One cannot start somebody at chef de partie level. For now we can bring in chefs de partie. They are accomplished up-and-coming chefs as it is, so let us bring them in. However, the problem is deeper than that, of course.

The other one is the general skills permit for other hospitality jobs. That is key too. I did not want to explore that off my own bat today because it was not up to me, but it is very important that this is also done. The ineligibility list blocks applications for work permits from outside the EU entirely, so one just cannot apply for a housekeeping team from outside the EU. That obviously needs to be addressed.

The last one was the-----