Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 108: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation if his attention has been drawn to the campaign being run by the Migrant Rights Centre to reform the employment permit system to enable migrant workers to change jobs more easily; if he will alter the employment permits to give full effect to section 8(3) of the Employment Permits Act 2006, which allows workers to change employment within a particular sector; if he intends to support this campaign and act on these proposals; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21916/10]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Employment Permits Act 2006 sets out in legislation the rules governing employment permits. One of the main objectives of this Act was to increase the rights and protections afforded to migrant workers and the means to ensure redress in the event of exploitative practices. The Act's provisions give immigrants greater freedom, autonomy and control over their own employment choices by enabling workers for the first time to apply and re-apply for their own permit and allowing workers to change their employer after a period of a year and move to another employment in order to take advantage of better conditions or career options. Last year, my Department issued almost 1,500 employment permits in respect of employees changing to new employers.

A properly controlled employment permit system requires that permits be issued to a specific employee for a specific job with a specific employer. To do otherwise would not only risk abuse of the employment permit system but would make it much more difficult to ensure that employers observed the employment rights of employees. The Employment Permits Act 2006 allows for regular review of Ireland's economic migration policies and my Department keeps these policies under review, in line with the emerging needs of the labour market, on an on-going basis.