Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies who contributed, including the Acting Chairman, Deputy Robert Troy. This is an important Bill. There were a number of anomalies in the legislation as it prevailed in 2006 and it is timely to deal with them. The general tone of the debate has been very positive. People recognise that we are competing in a very global environment. Companies who come to locate here as well as Irish companies seeking to succeed globally need a diverse selection of people. It is not a question of just having one group; diversity is required. One of Ireland's strengths in recent times has been its diverse labour pool. We can find people who are conversant in languages and who have technical expertise. We have been able to form teams of people, making Ireland a hub in important and dynamic sectors, including, as I mentioned earlier, data analytics and big data. That will be a driving force, and one needs a mixture of talent from home and abroad to create the necessary environment.

We must develop legislation which deals effectively with the needs of the economy. Equally, we must recognise that we have very high unemployment and outward migration. Clearly, any system of offering opportunities to work in Ireland must be conscious that there are many people with skills who must get a fair crack of the whip. We have dealt with that fairly by creating the three separate categories. There are sectors which have been entirely excluded and for which we will not give permits. Deputy Tóibín, who is not here at the moment, raised his concern in the context of au pairs and domestic workers. We do not give permits for domestic workers and there will be other categories where we know positions can be easily filled by Irish or EU nationals. Then there will be the high-skills areas where, clearly, there is a skills shortage. Those areas have been categorised not by an individual Minister but according to hard analysis to determine where we have genuine skills shortages and a need to amplify the skills available at home.

A number of Deputies, including Deputy Troy, raised the issue of whether we should have greater ambition and asked whether our educational institutions have been too slow to respond. To be fair, ICT is an area in which the institutions of higher education have stepped up to the plate. They have come under increasing pressure not only from the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, and me, but also from the industrial sector. One of the things that has been remarkable about the coalition behind the ICT plan has been the huge involvement across the spectrum from representative bodies, individual companies, higher education institutions and various associations driving software development. We have had a useful collaboration. It is a model for other sectors as we seek to build on strengths and training. We now have the emergence of SOLAS as a new training body. The model which has been successful in the ICT area is one we should develop, whereby industry becomes more involved in taking responsibility for the supply chain of skill. The two companies in respect of which we announced expansions today - Ericsson and SAP - support specific degree courses in the universities and take in up to 70 interns from colleges every year as part of that. We must see that level of engagement from other sectors which have the ambition to grow to ensure that higher education institutions respond. As the Deputy said, they can be a bit tardy at times or at least be seen to be so by employers. If we can get that level of engagement, it can be a win-win situation for both sides.

Deputy Troy also raised the issue of an employee's right to move from one employer to another. The provisions in the Bill reflect the expectation that an employee will spend at least one year with the employer that recruits him or her. It strikes a reasonable balance. Clearly, it is a reasonable period where an employer invests in training and arranging the permit to bring the employee in. We are not trying to create a situation of indentured labour. Where a person loses a job, we are providing for a period of six months during which he or she can find other employment. That also seeks to strike a balance.

Deputy Lawlor has left, but I wish to recognise the role of the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, of which he is a member. It put a great deal of work into the Bill. Senator Clune was the rapporteur. The approach advocated by the committee is, largely, the one we have adopted to make the system more friendly while recognising the need to focus, in an environment in which many people are out of work, on areas in which skills are genuinely scarce.

Deputy Tóibín raised the Younis case and compensation and asked whether sticking to the minimum wage was being too mean in failing to provide sufficient opportunity for a person to enforce his or her rights.

The difficulty is that where a person has not been operating on a contract or where there has been an illegal contract, the national minimum wage is the fallback position. That was the thinking behind the selection of the national minimum wage.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín raised the concern that there was not enough engagement with industry in meeting challenges at political and official level. To be fair, this is a case in which such criticism cannot be levelled. The Department has worked closely with industry and is responding to industry demands that we need a more user-friendly system for permits in areas of high growth opportunity. A number of prominent employers such as Sean O'Sullivan have publicly advocated the need for change. We sat down with those people and have been open with them in seeking to redesign the process. I agree that we need more open engagement, which is always desirable, but criticising this development on those grounds is unfair. My Department and others have responded openly to the challenges in the area. A feature of the Action Plan for Jobs has been based on much closer engagement between policymakers and officials and industry in its various forms. We have tried to open up the doors. We have regular consultation with our industry partners and we are trying to get closer to our clients. It is right that Deputy Peadar Tóibín advocates the idea, but it is not fair to criticise us as failing. We can do better and it is our ambition to continually do better.

Deputy Bernard Durkan raised the issue of how far to go in allowing people to use the retrospective permit process. The bedrock is that the person must have entered the country legally in the first place. For one reason or another, people may have fallen out of the system by having been made redundant, but this is the line we observe. Allowing people who do not come in legally to avail of a system to become legal may undermine the whole process. We must strike the right balance.

Many people have spoken about the need for skills in growing sectors, and I am pleased to say the Department has responded and cut the waiting times for decisions on permits dramatically. It has been reduced from 36 days to 15 days over the past 18 months. We are responding to the pressure. It is significant that there is a major increase in the proportion of permits issued to those with ICT skills. This is an area the committee recognised as one we had to respond to. We are creating a user-friendly process and we hope to move to a situation where we can make it more user-friendly and efficient for companies promoted by the IDA and Enterprise Ireland. That is the right way to approach it because Enterprise Ireland and the IDA deal with companies competing in the global environment. That is their mandate and we must recognise that where companies are getting support from IDA and Enterprise Ireland we must be supportive of their development.

I thank those who participated in the debate and I look forward to the debate on Committee Stage, when we can debate the issues in greater detail. I thank the officials who worked on the Bill over the past 18 months in developing a response. It is a major challenge and it is important to get it right.

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