Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. A plan of action is being implemented by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to meet the challenges of this increased demand and to reduce the processing time, which has built up recently, as the Deputy said. Staffing actions include recruitment of additional permanent and temporary staff which will increase the permanent processing capacity by over 100% and overall capacity by over 200% from November levels. Some 898 employment permits were processed last week, which is more than triple the 259 processed in the same week last year. Waiting times for critical skills employment permits are seven weeks for trusted partners and nine weeks for standard applications. These waiting times stood at 14 weeks for trusted partners and 21 weeks for standard applications only seven weeks ago, so progress has been made. The backlog continues to fall and it is now at 8,851, which is over 2,000 below its Christmas 2021 peak. The rate of applications in 2022 has stabilised at a rate of 32,000 applications per annum, which is considerably higher than the 27,000 received in 2021, which itself was well up on previous years. I spoke to the Tánaiste yesterday and to the Secretary General of the Department. We want those numbers down as quickly as possible.

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