Mr. Karl Picard:

I will give examples from some of our members. In his opening statement, Mr. McKeever referenced a family-run business that operates in the consumer foods industry. It was crying out for staff. It needed food operatives. It reached out locally to try to fill those vacancies and could not. It therefore had to look abroad and found that food operatives are on the ineligible list of occupations for employment permits. It now cannot source the staff it needs and has had to reduce its productivity by 25%.

Another example is a company in the midlands that operates in the meat industry. It wanted to hire a considerable number of people. Again, it advertised locally, tried to get people locally, could not fill the positions and then tried to source people abroad, but with the redistribution of meat processing employment permits this month, it has to go back to square 1. On 14 March it must apply for permits for all those people again and they will be issued on a first-come-first-served basis. The company is back to square 1. It cannot fill those roles at the moment so its productivity has decreased.

We have a slight trepidation about one section of the Employment Permits Bill 2022 where obligations are put on employers. They might be able to get employment permits faster if they provide accommodation for staff.

There is trepidation attached to that when we consider that there are less than 1,100 properties nationwide available to rent this morning on daft.ie. That is not in the big cities. I am a Westmeath man. In Westmeath or Dublin, it is equally difficult to find a rental property. Now, we are putting the obligation on employers that they will get their apartments faster if they can provide accommodation for workers. The problem is that, first, they cannot get the workers, whether they are in Ireland or coming from abroad and, second, there is not accommodation out there to be able to house them. We create a vicious cycle where employers are trying to do everything they possibly can to get the staff but they cannot, whether it be through the red tape of the obligations they have to follow or the fact that they cannot put a roof over workers' heads.