Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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303. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation when the last review took place of the highly skilled and ineligible lists for grant of employment permits; the frequency with which reviews are carried out; and when the next review of each such list will be carried out. [39527/18]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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A review of the Highly Skilled Eligible Occupations List (HSEOL) and the Ineligible Categories of Employment List (ICEL) was undertaken in the last quarter of 2017; as a result, in March 2018 a number of animation occupations were added to the HSEOL and certain grades of chef were removed from the ICEL, subject to a quota.

The highly skilled and ineligible occupation lists for the purposes of employment permits are reviewed every six months ensuring that the system is aligned with current labour market intelligence.

The quarter 1, 2018 review was subsumed into the fundamental review of the economic migration policies underpinning the employment permit regime to ensure they are fully supportive of Ireland's emerging labour market needs, the report of which was published last week. Under the auspices of the review, changes were made to the remove certain occupations in the agri-food sector from the ineligible occupation list on a pilot basis.

It is intended that the next review will commence in October, and a call for submissions to a public consultation and development of evidence based cases from interested parties will be made shortly.