Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 1 March 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs
Impact of Brexit on Ireland: Discussion
Mr. Eugene Drennan:
Yes, primarily those where drivers might have driven on the left before, those where there is a reasonable level of English and those who want to come here. Primarily, the people who want come here are from Argentina because of some old connectivity and some of our own coming home. Deputy Harkin is very good at history and she will tell you all about the flight of the earls. There is also the Philippines, because they will bring family members who would be very suitable to help the State in other ways. There are the EU trade agreement countries, around Ukraine and Russia, such as Moldova and Ukraine itself. I am forgetting one of them. There is of course India, which has good English speaking and they drive on the left. The progress on that is very slow. The progress of making the connectivity with either the other countries or the progress of seeing whether the ETBs can take in people who wish to apply and who come to be educated in English, and whether we can progress that. We badly need movement - that is for sure. The driver shortage is very relevant. Everybody is screaming for it and I know of two or three drivers. In some sectors, it is getting close to a failure to get the work done, such as in the areas of milk collection or seasonality like that in which you get a big flux. This is a driver's market, and in fairness, many Irish drivers do not want to on ferries and they do not want to be sailing for 48 hours per week. It eventually gets very tiring. There is not a lot of help to the employment regime. We have suggestions around that for help from the French. I can go into that now or later in the meeting.
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