Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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31. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the sectors within the agri-food industry that have reported worker shortages; his proposals to address these; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52448/21]

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. The lists are reviewed twice a year to ensure their ongoing relevance to the State’s human capital requirements. Consideration is also taken of the views of the Economic Migration Interdepartmental Group, chaired by my Department and of the relevant policy Departments including the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. The reviews involve a public consultation with submissions invited from sectors.

In the most recent review ten submissions were received from the Agri-Food sector referring to occupations in the horticulture, dairy, pig and poultry industries and meat processing.

The outcome of the most recent review was announced on 28 October. A press release is available on my Department’s website.

As a result of the review and in light of the continued labour shortages in the Agriculture and Agri-Food Sector, I decided to extend previous quotas to release 1000 general employment permits for horticulture operatives, 500 for meat deboners, 1500 for meat processing operatives and 100 for dairy farm assistants, with a strategic review of labour attraction and retention to follow.

The pig and poultry sector sought additional quotas for Farm Operatives. The review concluded that the submission did not contain sufficient evidence to merit the removal of that occupation from the list and an associated quota of permits at this time.

Changes to the labour market as the economy continues to reopen over the next few months will also help alleviate current shortages with an expected increase of people back into the workforce.