John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is great to have the Minister of State in the House. He served at the same time as Senators Boyhan, McDowell, Conway and Burke and indeed with the Cathaoirleach. It is great to see there is a pathway for all of us from this House to very high office. However, we should perhaps follow more in the spirit of Senator Hackett who was appointed directly from here to Cabinet. I am going off on a tangent.

I would like to pay tribute to Deputy Richmond's predecessor, the former Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy English. He served this country with great distinction over a number of years in various Departments and ministries and I would like to pay tribute to all the work he has put in.

The reason I am talking about permits, and the Minister of State will know that this has been a somewhat political issue in the last couple of years, is that it has been difficult to get key workers in the critical sectors of the Irish economy because of the length of time it takes to process work permit applications. I know a lot of work has been done in the last couple of months to streamline them and I welcome that and think that is excellent. However, I am raising this matter in the House and with the Minister of State because I would like to know what his plans are, as a new Minister of State, and in his Department to try to streamline the process and make it more efficient. This will make sure that people who want to come to this country, to work in this country, and play a part in our economy and Irish society have the ability to do that as quickly as possible and are not left in limbo because of red tape and bureaucracy.

To bring the issue to a more localised level in my county, in Dundalk and wider County Louth there are many examples. These include foreign multinational companies, of which we have a substantial number, who are trying to bring workers in and are not able to do so because of the restrictive and long drawn-out nature of the process. When I looked at Amazon for example, it was responsible for 3.5% of all the work permit applications in 2022. That worked out at roughly 1,394 people. That was 1,394 people who came to this country to work for just one organisation. Equally when we look at agriculture, and I have discussed this quite a lot with people involved in the agricultural community in County Louth, it has become quite difficult to source staff from local economies. That is why people who come into Ireland will play such a vital role in our agricultural process.

When one looks at the wider aspect, for instance home carers and medical practitioners, the concept is that we want to keep people in their homes for as long as possible and home care assistants play a vital role in that. It is about making sure that people who want to come to this country are able to do so in a timely and efficient manner.

I am somewhat concerned about the speed of processing applications. Particularly for local economies and especially for Border economies like County Louth, it is very important. I have raised this matter and want to hear directly from the Minister of State what his plans are and how the process will be streamlined. I acknowledge a lot of work has happened in recent months to try to speed it up but there is a lot more to do. We have a concept that we have full employment in this country and we have people from right across the world who want to come to Ireland because we are an economic success story. We absolutely are and we have people coming here who want to work and contribute to Irish society and to the Irish economy. We should make that as easy as possible for people who want to come and work here and I would be very keen to hear the Minister of State's views on the matter.