Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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1355. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality when the decision was made to provide short-term letters of permission on 27 May 2022 to stamp 2 visa holders whose permissions were due to expire on 31 May 2022; and if she will account for any delay between the decision and announcement. [30491/22]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I can advise the Deputy that, once the issue was raised with my Department, a number of practical issues had to be worked through before the solution, to provide short-term letters of permission, could be made by a senior official in my Department on 23 May 2022. These issues included how best to incorporate efficiently a new area of work, given significant pressures on the resources of the immigration system as travel resumes and given the need to manage the timely issue of temporary protection status to thousands of Ukrainians in the past weeks. 

Following the completion of some practical arrangements, this decision was then publicly communicated on 27 May 2022 by way of a press release, a notice posted to my Department's immigration website (www.irishimmigration.ie), and a direct communication to the members of the Immigration NGO Forum, which engages with my Department on immigration matters.

During the pandemic, immigration permissions were extended nine times to allow people who held a valid permission to be in the State in March 2020 to be legally permitted to remain here until 31 May 2022. These extensions were made in the context of an uncertain health and international travel situation to provide assistance and assurance to people who use our immigration services.

Notwithstanding this, I announced the most recent measure to provide clarity to certain groups over the summer period and provided a notice to employers that non-EEA nationals may continue to work once they can provide documentary evidence of their ongoing application to renew their immigration permission.