Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to get an opportunity to talk on this topic as many employers across the county of Kerry have been asking me to help them to get people to work for them. Work permits come up all the time. Last week, a plaster was on to me looking to get a plasterer in from another country. He has been held up all year. He went through all the hoops. He had to advertise in the local paper and had to do so a second time. He had to contact social welfare in writing so many times. It costs more than €2,000. The system needs to be streamlined. In these scenarios, whether it is a worker in construction, hospitality or farming or drivers, excavator drivers or lorry drivers, they can have all the accreditations, tickets and so on but you do not really know until they arrive whether they are suitable or not and whether they will they work out. There should be some sort of a temporary certificate or permit that you could get for three months or so to see how they work out. After all, it costs more than €2,000 and takes an awful lot of work. There are about four Departments involved with which you have to make contact to get a person through. At different times over the last couple of weeks, I have raised the possibility of training Ukrainian women to do home help. We have a dire need for home help workers in Kerry. Elderly people have been allocated so many home help hours by the HSE but no one turns up because we are told it does not have the staff. It would be ideal if those women could be trained, including those who have cars and those who have English. They have to be English speaking to deal with elderly people.

The system we have is too intricate for small employers. It may be all right for professionals, doctors and so on, their CVs will stand for themselves, but it is not enough if you employ a driver who will say he drove this and that. He may have tickets for it but when he arrives he may not be able to drive a pram. The €2,000 cost and the amount of red tape involved is too much for many of the people I have talked about. I ask the Minister of State to streamline it in some way so that it would be possible to get in workers on a temporary basis.

The story in Killarney has been mention where 193 asylum seekers arrived a number of days ago. They arrive at the Quality Hotel on the Park Road in Killarney where there was already 135 Ukrainian women and their children, many of whom had settled and integrated into the town. They were working in hotels and the children had been bought school uniforms and were at school but they were given 48 hours to leave the hotel and go to Westport. We saw the Government at its best, playing politics with these poor people in this unfortunate situation. The Government accepted the 193 men and directed them to the Quality Hotel in Killarney where there was already 134 women and children. Then we had Deputy Griffin, the deputy Government Chief Whip, challenging the Government of which he himself is part for bringing them to Killarney. Last evening, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, said there was no going back and that the Ukrainian women and children would have to leave Killarney and go to Westport even though the children had got their school uniforms and were integrated into the community. Then this morning, some time after 10 a.m., the Minister, Deputy Foley, announced that she had got the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, to allow the Ukrainian women to remain in Killarney even though I was made aware at 3 p.m. yesterday that they would be allowed to remain there. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, said yesterday evening that there was no going back but then the Minister, Deputy Foley, came out this morning with an announcement, saying she was a great woman and had it all sorted out. However the locals-----

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