Deirdre Clune (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A very important conference is taking place in Dublin this week, the web summit, the largest tech conference in Europe. It underlines the credibility of Ireland as an IT sector given the many employers we have in this area. More than 200 CEOs from various companies are speaking at the conference. These include multi-million businesses, Twitter and Skype, as well as start-up entrepreneurs and everything in between. It is a very important conference.

What has emerged in the commentary is the need to institute a technology visa, a concept I support because it is very important. We currently have approximately 4,000 to 5,000 vacancies in the IT sector because we do not have the graduates or capacity to fill them on our own. This is a worldwide issue. As a method of ensuring that Irish employers find employees with software capabilities, a technology visa would be a way of attracting such people to Ireland. It is not about displacing jobs but about ensuring we can fill these positions and maintain jobs in our own communities. It is a very important issue and has been raised time and again in such discussions. Will the Leader bring the issue of a technology visa to the attention of the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, and ask that it be advanced in the interest of underpinning our strong performance in the technology area?