Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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42. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the plans that are in place to reduce the waiting times for employment permits considering that recently have been taking up to five months to receive a decision on applications; if he will consider implementing measures to reimburse businesses that incur costs as a result of the backlog such as in the case of job applicants withdrawing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25033/22]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The Department experienced a significant increase in applications for employment permits in the past year, impacting on processing times. From the start of January to the end of December 2021, some 27,666 applications were received, representing a 69% increase over the same period in 2020 (16,293) and a 47% increase on 2019 (18,811), which itself represented an 11 year high in applications. The Department issued 16,275 employment permits in 2021, and processed a total of 17,968 applications which represents a significant volume of activity.

The Department recognises the impact delays in the processing times for work permits has for businesses and their workers. An internal plan of action has been implemented which has increased resources and introduced more efficient methods of processing applications in the permits system. The processing team has trebled in size and daily output has more than tripled compared to 2021 levels.

Since the implementation of this plan, the Employment Permits Unit has made positive progress to reduce the current backlog reducing the number of applications awaiting processing from c. 11,000 in January 2022 to under 6,000 to date, despite further strong growth in demand in 2022. As new staff were trained on Critical Skills and Intra Corporate Transfer Employment Permits, processing times for those permits have fallen from 21 weeks to 6 weeks.

From the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic in order to assist the HSE and all other medical providers in the State to respond to, and to assist with the public health response to the threat of Covid-19, all employment permit applications for medical personnel are expedited.

The Employment Permits Unit is coming to the end of processing the bulk of the 3,000 additional General Employment Permits applications made available to the meat and horticultural sectors (c.1,000 horticulture applications and c.2,000 meat applications), following the latest review of the Occupational Lists last year, in addition to normal processing workload.

Processing times for General Employment Permit applications for Trusted Partners have fallen from 22 weeks to 16 weeks. Processing times for General Employment Permit applications from Standard applicants should begin to fall next week.

The Department expects to see a consistent strong fall in waiting times for General Employment Permits from mid-May, with processing times considerably reduced by end of Q2. We will continue to drive them lower in Q3.

In respect of the fees paid for General Employment Permits, under employment permit legislation 90% of the fee paid is refunded to the applicant if the application is either refused or withdrawn.