James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment determines whether to issue an employment permit based on a labour market needs test. This decides whether employment opportunities that arise in Ireland should be offered to suitably skilled Irish and other EEA nationals before being offered to non-EEA nationals where no suitable candidate emerges from within the EEA system to fill that vacancy. Immigration checks done by the Department of Justice are a separate part of the process for entry to Ireland and an examination of the visa application will include checks on qualifications and experience for a role, for example. Visa officers must ensure visa applications for entry into Ireland are fully in order, including aspects such as the qualifications, skills and previous experience being claimed by applicants. There are about 5,500 applications for employment visas received per year on average. We expect to get back to the normal processing times quite soon. Perhaps some communications work must be carried out if some employers feel that once they get the employment permit that the job is almost done as within the Department of Justice and the visa application, subsequent checks must be done on employment qualifications in addition to other background checks on the applicant.

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