Mr. Aidan O'Shea:

Regardless of when their courses run, people on stamp 2 visas can work 40 hours per week from June to September, inclusive, and from 15 December to 15 January. At all other times of the year, they are allowed to work 20 hours per week. It does not matter when their courses start or whether they are on one-week, ten-week or 25-week courses. MEI member schools run rolling enrolments, so we have students joining us on 50 Mondays of the year.

This system was implemented with the ILEP in 2015. Before that, it was a 12-month visa rather than an eight-month one and the work was linked to when students were on vacation.

It never made sense that a person could technically study full-time for 15 hours a week and work full-time for 40 hours a week. This was brought in at the time because it mirrored the third level academic year, but it did not make sense for rolling enrolment.

Another issue is that we are limited to students having courses from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday. Previously, they had the ability to work in the evenings. At the time, we spoke to ACELS and informed that courses could not finish at 5.15 p.m.; they had to be finished by 5 p.m. It was a very rigid system. As stated, students were previously able to work in the evenings. From a school point of view, we would welcome the ability to add a third session to the day. At the moment, we can only offer classes in the mornings and afternoons.

The current system of limiting it to certain times of the year does not make sense, particularly for students. Many arrive in the September-October period to start 25-week courses. For the first six months they are limited to 20 hours a week. We felt at the time that it was a strange decision to limit the full working rights to just a very specific summer period.