Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

On Report Stage in the Dáil, I indicated my intention to propose that an enabling provision be included in this Bill to allow the Government's decision on granting labour market access to nationals of Bulgaria and Romania on the accession of those countries to the European Union to be implemented by ministerial order. Amendment No. 1 proposes to make such a provision.

This autumn, the EU Council of Ministers will review the preparedness of Bulgaria and Romania to accede to the EU. There are three options as regards access to the Irish labour market by nationals of Bulgaria and Romania, namely to continue to require nationals of these states to obtain employment permits from the date of accession, to grant these nationals access to the labour market without the need to acquire an employment permit or to grant permits without a labour market test on foot of a job offer.

The Government will take a decision on this issue before accession and to avoid having to bring forward additional primary legislation for this purpose, this amendment enables the decision to be implemented by ministerial order at the appropriate time. The amendment achieves this by replacing the existing section 3 of the Bill with new text which facilitates the first option I described of retaining the requirement for Bulgarian or Romanian nationals to obtain employment permits by replacing section 2(10) of the Employment Permits Act 2003 with a wording which makes it clear that Bulgarian or Romanian nationals are not exempt from the requirement to have work permits unless, as specified in the supplemental provisions of section 2(a)(i), they have already been working here for an uninterrupted period of at least 12 months. If employment permits are required by nationals of Bulgaria and Romania, the amendment to section 2(11) of the Employment Permits Act 2003 provides that preference must be given to these nationals over nationals of third countries.

The second option of granting access to the labour market by Bulgarian or Romanian nationals is facilitated by the making of a ministerial order under section 3(a)(i) exempting them from obtaining employment permits. Such an order may be made only if it is desirable in the interests of the proper functioning of the economy and if employment opportunities will be available for nationals of these states. Such an order may be revoked only if the labour market experiences a disturbance or is likely to do so thereafter.

The third option of granting nationals of Bulgaria and-or Romania employment permits without a labour market test is catered for by section 3(b), which provides for the possible introduction of such an arrangement by ministerial order. This arrangement will be primarily intended for the purpose of monitoring the flow of workers from these countries into the Irish labour market.

Amendment No. 13 is a technical amendment which I propose on the advice of the Parliamentary Counsel. This new section is to put into primary legislation the mechanism that would enable the Government to make decisions at the appropriate time as to whether to continue the existing situation on Bulgarian and Romanian citizens or to change it. If we want to change it we would have to do so by ministerial regulation.