Billy Lawless (Independent) | Oireachtas source

If the Cathaoirleach will permit me, I am honoured that my sisters, my uncle and aunt and my first cousins are all in the Gallery. They are descendants of my grandfather, Gerald Fitzgerald from Clonakilty, who taught in Clonakilty Agricultural College and whose three sons worked there as well. I am honoured that they are here today and thank them for joining us.

I thank the Minister of State for his attendance today for this most important issue to Irish emigrants living overseas. As the Minister is aware, on 6 March this year it was announced that the spouses and partners of critical skills employment permit holders will be able to access the Irish labour market without the need to obtain an employment permit. This is a very welcome announcement and I applaud the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, for bringing it into being. I am, however, completely bewildered that although this initiative can be introduced with relative ease, the partners of returning Irish emigrants have to wait months before securing an employment permit. Surely to God if we are extending this scheme to individuals of every nationality bar none who have the relevant employment permit, we can do the same for our own. Partners of returning Irish emigrants are waiting anything up to a year to get a work permit. They are our own people and they currently rank below partners or spouses of non-Irish workers in terms of priority. What kind of message does that send to the Irish emigrant community about how welcome they are to return home?

As the Minister of State knows, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade commissioned and published the Indecon economic report on addressing challenges faced by returning Irish emigrants in February 2018. A key challenge identified within the report was the inability of partners of returning emigrants to obtain work permits. According to the same report, in 2017, 529 spouses or partners of returning emigrants applied for work permits and the average processing time was almost six months. The report, published over a year ago now, especially recommends at a very minimum the introduction of a pre-clearance system for applications in order to speed up both information and decisions. This is the least we can expect, but I would ask the Minister of State to go further. Why not allow all spouses and partners of returning emigrants an automatic entitlement to work and get rid of the permit requirement, as the Minister of State has done for critical skills employment permit holders?

As the Minister of State is aware, we lost the Irish E3 visa allocation of 5,000 by a single vote in the US Senate before Christmas, after getting unanimous consent in the House of Representatives. The Irish E3 is a surplus visa that the Australians do not take up. We are in the process of reintroducing it in the US Senate and House very shortly and are hopeful of being successful this time around. Significantly, spouses of these E3 visa holders will automatically receive work authorisation in the United States. If this is passed, Ireland will reciprocate by allowing US citizens and their spouses work authorisation here.

Irish citizens with their spouses are now returning to Ireland after the terrible recession we had over ten years ago. They are returning with new skills and some with a non-Irish spouse. These spouses cannot get work authorisation. That is wrong. We cannot be hypocrites in this. We are talking about 572 people married to or in a partnership with Irish citizens. According to the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, in 2018 almost 9,000 people were in receipt of the critical skills employment permit. All of the spouses and partners of those people and future applicants for the permit have now effectively been given an amnesty to work in this country. We must treat our returning emigrants equally. I urge the Minister of State to at least implement the recommendations of the Indecon report. Better still, he should afford partners or spouses of returning emigrants the same rights and opportunities that have been extended to over 9,000 spouses and partners of non-Irish citizens.