Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to acknowledge the range of supports put in place by Government to support businesses, particularly those in the hospitality sector, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Without these supports many businesses would have closed permanently but thankfully many were able to survive at reduced capacity for the last two years. While I appreciate that we are not out of the woods yet, hopefully in the next year or two things will be able to return to normal with the easing of restrictions. Many of these businesses are now facing a new and significant challenge to their future, namely, staff shortages. According to research carried out by Fáilte Ireland, as many as nine out of ten hospitality businesses are having difficulty recruiting staff with up to 40,000 vacancies. These vacancies are across all departments, including chefs, kitchen staff, front-of-house staff, waiters, waitresses, housekeeping staff and receptionists.

Many restaurants are only operating for four or five days per week. One local catering company in Galway has 15 vacancies, with no applications or interest being expressed in the available positions. Before the pandemic, the tourism and hospitality sector was worth almost €10 billion to the Irish economy, with hotels, bars and restaurants employing up to 300,000 people, with 100,000 extra in the summer months. There is significant pent-up demand from international tourism and also domestic tourism, with traditional annual events and festivals expected to proceed this year.

Tourism should be expected to return to record numbers, but unfortunately staff shortages are threatening this recovery. The work permit scheme is strict about qualifying job categories and rates of pay. The work permit system should be looked at to enable the hospitality sector to secure essential workers and to help our economy to recover as quickly as possible. Difficulties organising visas, long processing times and many vacancies in job categories that do not meet the criteria need to be reviewed to help our economy in the short to medium term. Another significant issue is accommodation, with many hotels setting aside a certain number of rooms for workers. This takes capacity out of the tourism sector.

Will the Taoiseach look at the criteria for the work permit system and expand them to facilitate the hospitality sector?

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