Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 30 November 2022

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Employment Permits Bill 2022: Committee Stage

Photo of Damien EnglishDamien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I recognise the Deputy's willingness to engage on this matter. We are concerned about what would happen if we accepted the amendment.

We are trying to discourage poor applications and have applications of a sloppy standard, which happens more often that it should. We are trying to discourage that. We try to triage in certain key areas and we would inform somebody if there is an obvious mistake or error. However, some of the applications coming forward are of a very poor standard and they should not be. We would not recommend putting in the 30 days because that is what we do at the moment and have allowed for that and it has caused a problem. It has caused additional administration and additional delays. We are trying to perfect the system and make it more efficient and that is what the ask of this review is. We will be putting in place new technologies as well. We will be able to deal with the Deputy’s concern in another way by capturing that area. Allowing an extra 30 days will not solve the problem the Deputy is trying to solve either.