Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy English, to the House and thank him for taking the first matter, which has been raised by Senator Robbie Gallagher.

Robbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail)
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Ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire Stáit go dtí an Teach seo inniu. Ba mhaith liom fosta buíochas a ghabháil leis as a bheith anseo mar tá a fhios agam go bhfuil sé faoi bhrú agus go bhfuil a lán oibre á déanamh aige. The Minister of State is very welcome to the House this morning.

He knows that Monaghan's local economy is deeply dependent on the success of the agrifood sector. There are data to support this. Monaghan has the highest agricultural export value per hectare outside of Dublin, made up mainly of poultry, as 52% of the country's entire flock is located in County Monaghan. It is also the largest producer and exporter of mushrooms in the country. Local company, Monaghan Mushrooms, is the largest exporter of mushrooms in Europe and the second largest in the world. To put this in perspective, the mushroom industry has a farm gate value of €119 million, of which approximately 85% is exported to the UK. It employs over 3,500 people and we produce 70,000 tonnes of mushrooms each year, of which 80%, worth €120 million, is marketed to UK multiples. These are world leaders in the field and we are very proud of the industry in County Monaghan.

If anything was to damage the sector, it would have serious implications for the whole economy of the county. Unfortunately, the sector is currently facing a number of threats, including in the case of the mushroom sector, the issue of peat harvesting. I am sure the Minister of State is well aware of that and although it is a different matter, it is connected to what I am speaking about today. I ask the Minister of State to bring the message that this needs to be sorted urgently back to the Government. There should be a common sense approach to that matter.

Today, I am speaking about a labour shortage threatening not just the mushroom industry but the poultry sector, meat processing and hospitality. In the mushroom industry the labour shortage is at crisis levels and is continuing to deteriorate every month. For both the poultry and meat processing industries, an increase in imported labour is vital. These industries were hopeful of an announcement of a new horticulture worker permit quota in September but they are still awaiting official word on where exactly that stands. Compounding matters is the fact that the employment permit application process is currently taking over ten weeks. With respect, that is too long and adding to the stress being felt by these employers.

These delays in the application process, along with problems I mentioned in peat importation, climate change, Brexit and currency fluctuation that we in Border counties must live with on a daily basis are combining to potentially create a perfect storm in Monaghan's agribusiness sector and in the sector generally. This matter needs urgent attention so I ask the Government to give it such attention. I look forward to the Minister of State's response.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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It is good to be back in this House and see everybody back in their home. I thank Senator Gallagher for raising this important matter, which has been topical over the past couple of months. The matters raised today are directly important for Monaghan and its mushroom and poultry sector. Agribusiness is extremely important for Monaghan, as it is for my county of Meath. The matters raised here have been brought to me directly by the industry as well, along with the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, earlier in the year. The Senator is right to call this out and it is a big issue to work on for the country and the sector. It is really important for Monaghan that we find solutions to the labour difficulties in the area.

The Senator mentioned mushrooms and poultry and I have engaged directly with some of the companies involved in trying to work with them on solutions. I will certainly outline where that journey is as well. I agree with the Senator that we must find a common sense solution to the peat harvesting question. Peat is required for the domestic horticultural sector and it is only 1% or 2% of what would have been harvested or used in the country over the past couple of years. There has been a massive gain already so we should try to find some way to make that work. I know the Minister of State, Deputy Malcolm Noonan, is working very closely with a group trying to make this a reality. I hope we can find a solution that works for everybody. Through innovation, research and development we will find solutions in the years ahead, and this will take a little bit longer, so in the meantime it makes sense to find some way to source the peat locally in Ireland rather than having to import it. I agree with the Senator and I hope a common sense solution can be found. I expect it will and the sector is working across numerous Departments and agencies to that end.

The employment permits system is designed to facilitate the entry of appropriately skilled non-European Economic Area, EEA, nationals to fill skills and labour shortages in circumstances where there are no suitably qualified Irish or EEA nationals available to undertake the work and the shortage is genuine. The system is managed through the operation of the critical skills and ineligible occupations lists, which are subject to twice-yearly evidence-based reviews, which is what the Senator referred to. That generally happens in the autumn, in October or November, and we are trying to ensure much of the work is now carried out during August and September, with results to be published in October. The decisions would be made at that stage. The Senator mentioned how people are waiting to see what happens in that respect and we are in the middle of that work.

In May 2018, a pilot quota-based scheme was introduced to remove certain agrifood occupations from the ineligible occupations list. The scheme provided for 2,500 general employment permits for the meat processing industry, 500 for horticulture and 150 for the dairy sector to address the immediate needs of the sectors in sourcing labour. In addition, a quota of 300 permits was granted in respect of meat deboners. To date, this pilot scheme has proved very successful for a range of employers in the sector, including those mentioned by the Senator. The difficulty is that all quotas expired in December 2019.

A review of the occupation lists is currently under way and all submissions are under active consideration, including those from the agrifood sector. I have met many of those representatives. It is envisaged that the review will be finalised in the autumn, and we are targeting early October if possible. We are working through the submissions, with over 26 such submissions from the various sectors and quite a few from agrifood businesses.

Applications for employment permits have seen a significant increase over the course of the year. As of the end of August, some 14,600 applications were received, representing a 35% increase over the same period in 2020 and a 19% increase over 2019, which itself represented an 11-year high in applications. Recently, processing times have been impacted by this significant increase in demand and by the HSE cyberattack, as has been well documented. These factors resulted in a significant additional administrative burden in dealing with applications associated with the July doctor rotation, which were submitted either manually or by other non-standard methods.That has added to and delayed processing times, which are now above ten weeks and, in some cases, above 15 weeks. We are trying to deal with that. We are putting in place extra staff to process the permit applications that are needed urgently for certain sectors. We try to operate that urgently along with trusted partners.

It is important to point out that when set against other international employment permit regimes, Ireland continues to compare extremely favourably. We managed to keep our schemes open throughout the Covid pandemic. However, my Department is conscious of the recent lengthening of timeframes for processing applications and is taking a range of measures to clear the current backlog as quickly as possible. My Department advises employers to take current timelines into account as part of their recruitment plans. That is something we discussed with the sector earlier in the year. We will make every effort to reduce the timelines as well as dealing with the review of the lists in the next couple of weeks.

Robbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the comments of the Minister of State regarding peat. I know he is well aware of the urgency of the issue. We need a common-sense solution to this issue today. That is how urgent it is. I am not over-emphasising the seriousness of the situation. I welcome the fact that he is allocating additional staff to deal with the backlog for permits. I look forward to the backlog being cleared sooner rather than later.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I again thank the Senator for raising the issue. I assure him that we recognise it is extremely important. An efficient and responsive employment permit system is a critical lever in addressing the economy’s skills needs and in ensuring that talent is attracted to Ireland from non-EEA sources. Its success in this regard is reflected in the flow of skilled non-EEA professionals to the country and the critical role they play in the continued growth of the economy.

The reviews to which I referred are guided by research undertaken by the expert group on future skills needs and the skills and labour market research unit of SOLAS. A public consultation is included. Account is taken of education outputs, sectoral upskilling, training initiatives and known contextual factors such as Brexit and Covid-19. Input is provided by the relevant policy Departments, including the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and the economic migration interdepartmental group chaired by the Department.

I welcome the opportunity to underscore that Ireland is a leader in linking labour market intelligence to policy development. In our discussions with all the sectors that are experiencing labour issues, I fully explained to them that we expect that, where at all possible, labour is sourced locally from within Ireland, then from within the EU and thereafter moving on to the permit scheme. As part of that, industry and the various sectors have to make every effort to engage with our education partners through all our stakeholders, such as SOLAS, education and training boards, institutes of technology and so on, to try to find new programmes and initiatives to bring forward skills and to upskill staff. In addition, they need to work with Intreo offices through the Department of Social Protection under the pathways to work strategy to access supports to enable them to find new talent, such as among people who are currently on the pandemic unemployment payment or jobseeker's benefit. If there is a genuine need and shortage despite all that effort, we will work with the sector and respond. It should be borne in mind that we have to try to put in place more initiatives to upskill people living here in order to enable them to take up those jobs in the long term and I expect all sectors to work with us on that. The majority of them do so and are trying. It needs an effort from all of us to make this happen in the long term.