Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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693. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to address staffing shortages in the home care sector arising from the exclusion of home carers from the critical skills exemption to the non-EEA employment permit system. [43699/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Programme for Government commits to the introduction of a statutory scheme to support people to live in their own homes, which will provide equitable access to high-quality, regulated home care. The Department of Health is in the process of developing a statutory scheme for the financing and regulation of home-support. It is intended that the new scheme will provide equitable and transparent access to high-quality services based on a person’s assessed care-needs.

As part of this work, my department is examining the potential demand and cost of introducing such a scheme. Following this, work will be undertaken to examine the associated workforce requirements for the introduction of such a scheme and officials from the department will engage with relevant stakeholders from other sectors as required.

The employment permits system operated by the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment is designed to facilitate the entry of appropriately skilled non-EEA nationals to fill skills and/or labour shortages. This objective must be balanced by the need to ensure that there are no suitably qualified Irish/EEA nationals available to undertake the work. The employment permits system is managed through the operation of the critical skills and the ineligible occupations lists which determine employments that are either in high demand or are ineligible for consideration for an employment permit.

The critical skills and ineligible occupation lists are reviewed twice a yearly in a process led by the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment. It is an evidence-based process that takes account of labour market conditions and submissions from sectors and other stakeholders together with contextual factors, including in the current context, COVID-19. The purpose of the system is to maximise the benefits of economic migration while minimising the risk of disrupting the Irish labour market.

The review of the occupations list for 2021 is currently underway and officials from my department will engage in discussions with officials from the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment in respect of submissions received relating to the health sector. The public consultation phase of this review commenced on 1st July 2021 with a closing date for submissions of Thursday, 12th August 2021. The submissions received from the home care sector will be considered in the context of this review.