Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator again for raising the issue. I totally understand the difficulties that are out there because I have engaged with the sectors quite a lot. When I said we were prioritising medical staff I meant to point out that we prioritised permits for chefs as well because we understood that the sector was under an awful lot of pressure and that it was an essential service providing food during the Covid emergency. We tried to fast-track and expedite permits for chefs wherever we could.Likewise, other sectors have come forward recently making strong cases to have their applications dealt with in a timely manner. Regular users of the permit system have a much quicker timeline for processing. As I said, 1,784 applications were made this year, which is a 41% increase compared to last year. The Senator will appreciate that meant there would be some delays. We tried to address that through overtime and staffing. On top of that, we had to deal with medical permit applications, which are generally submitted in May, June and July. Many of those permits had to be processed manually, which caused great difficulty.

However, our teams have been responding both in dealing with the permits in the system and in reviewing the lists under which people are allowed to apply for permits. The hospitality sector and many other sectors, including the transport sector which is a significant one, are included on the lists. We will deal with those in the coming weeks. I will continue to engage with all those companies and sectors. We have to address the skills shortage in many other ways in the long term, rather than simply a reliance on the employment permits system. I am committed to doing that. The various Departments will join forces to address that, if this can be done, in the long term. The employment permits system is often a way to solve the problem in the short term as well as bringing in some new talent to the country.