Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent)
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251. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will address concerns by farmers that factories are advising pig farmers that they may be unable to process their pigs as they are unable to source staff. [51171/21]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The employment permits system is designed to facilitate the entry of appropriately skilled non-EEA nationals to fill skills and/or labour shortages, in circumstances where there are no suitably qualified Irish/EEA nationals available to undertake the work and that the shortage is a genuine one.

The system is managed through the use of lists designating highly skilled and ineligible occupations.  In order to maintain the relevance of these lists of occupations to the needs of the economy and to ensure their ongoing relevance to the State’s human capital requirements, they undergo twice-yearly evidence-based reviews.  The reviews are guided by research undertaken by the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN), the Skills and the Labour Market Research Unit (SLMRU), SOLAS and involves public/stakeholder consultation.  Account is taken of education outputs, sectoral upskilling and training initiatives and known contextual factors such as Brexit and, in the current context, COVID-19 and their impact on the labour market.  Consideration is also taken of the views of the Economic Migration Interdepartmental Group, chaired by my Department and of the relevant policy Departments.  Officials from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine are represented on the Economic Migration Interdepartmental Group.

In May 2018, a pilot quota-based scheme was introduced to remove certain agri-food 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.  These three quotas created for dairy farm assistant, horticulture worker and meat processing operative have now expired.  

A review of the occupation lists is currently well underway with submissions, including those in respect of meat & pig processing, under consideration.  It is expected that the review will be finalised in the coming weeks and any changes necessary to deal with verified skills or labour shortages will be made at that time.