Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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22. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the measures that are being taken to address the shortage of care workers in Ireland; when work permit arrangements for non-EU-EEA citizens will be put in place to include care workers under the eligible occupations list; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53779/22]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The occupation of Nursing Auxiliary or Health Care Assistant working in hospital or residential home care settings has been eligible for a General Employment Permit since June 2021.

The occupation of Home Care Worker working in private homes is currently ineligible for an employment permit.

The cross-departmental Strategic Workforce Advisory Group was established by the Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People, Mary Butler, in March 2022. The Group was charged with examining strategic workforce challenges in publicly and privately provided front-line carer roles in home support and nursing homes and with making recommendations to address these.

The Group, which was chaired by the Department of Health, comprised representatives from several government departments and agencies, including my Department and the Report of the Group was published on 15 October.

The Report includes 16 recommendations spanning the areas of recruitment, pay and conditions of employment, barriers to employment, training and professional development, sectoral reform, and monitoring and implementation.

It recommends that home-support workers should be made eligible for an Employment Permit.

To this end, I and officials in my Department will work with the Department of Health on the regulations necessary to give effect to this recommendation as soon as possible.

Furthermore, the Report recommends that the arrangement for employment permits for home support workers should replicate those currently in place for healthcare assistants in nursing homes, and in addition recommends an upper threshold of 1,000 work-permits; a stipulation for a minimum two-year contract; a minimum salary for home-support workers of €27,000 per annum based on a 39-hour week; and a minimum continuous shift-length per working day of 4 hours.