Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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204. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will add fishers to the critical skills occupations list to enable them to be eligible for employment under the critical skills permit system, reflecting skills and worker shortages in this vital area. [27190/22]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The State's employment permit system is designed to supplement Ireland's skills and labour supply over the short to medium term by allowing enterprises to recruit nationals from outside the EEA, where such skills or expertise cannot be sourced from within the EEA at that time.

The system is, by design, vacancy led and managed through the operation of the occupation lists: the critical skills list in respect of skills that are in critical shortage in the labour market and the ineligible occupations lists for which a ready source of labour is available from within Ireland and the EEA.

The occupation of fisher is currently on the Ineligible Occupations List for non-EEA nationals wishing to take up employment in the State. Changes to the employment permit occupations lists are made where there are no suitable Irish/EEA nationals available, development opportunities are not undermined, genuine skills shortage exists rather than a recruitment or retention problem and Government education, training and economic development policies are supported.

The lists are reviewed twice a year to ensure their ongoing relevance to the State’s human capital requirements, guided by available research undertaken by the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN), and the Skills and the Labour Market Research Unit (SLMRU) in SOLAS. Cognisance is also taken of education outputs, sectoral upskilling and training initiatives and contextual factors such as Brexit and more recently COVID 19 and their impact on the labour market.  The views of the relevant policy Departments are taken into account as well as those of the Economic Migration Interdepartmental Group which my Department chairs and on which a number of Departments are represented.

The Department will continue to review the employment permits system in light of changing labour market circumstances. The timing of the next review of the Occupational List will be kept under review in the context of clearing the current employment permits backlog. When open, submissions will be invited from sector representative bodies and interested parties via the Public Consultation Form which will be accessible on the Department’s website throughout the consultation period.

Fishers are currently facilitated under the Atypical Working Scheme administered by the Department of Justice and my Department is in close contact with colleagues in the Department with regard to the appropriate working authorisations for fishers.