Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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111. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment for an update on the new rules that allow doctors who have been working in the State for more than two years to immediately be able to access a stamp 4 permission and spousal work rights; the number of doctors who applied under the new rules; the number that were approved; the number who were rejected; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6229/23]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, 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 the recruitment of 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 critical skills and ineligible occupation lists. Doctors, including non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs), are on the critical skills list.

The Critical Skills Employment Permit is targeted at highly skilled people in eligible occupations deemed to be critically important to growing Ireland’s economy, and who are in significant shortage of supply in our labour market.

This permit provides for immediate family reunification, broad access to the labour market for dependants, spouses and partners as well as fast tracking to long term residency after two years. The criteria attached to this permit type includes the requirement for the non-EEA national to have secured a job offer and employment contract of at least two years.

NCHD contracts are typically 6 to12 months in duration. Until recently, doctors had to renew their General Employment Permit after each contract. To reduce this administrative burden, a 2 year multi-side general employment permit for NCHDs was introduced November 2021. This permit is only available to public hospitals who hold trusted partner status with the Department.

Under the terms of this permit, the doctor is required to provide a new contract and location to the Department at the end of each rotation, rather than applying for a new permit each time. At the end of the two-year period the doctor will be eligible to apply to the Department for a Stamp 4 Support Letter which will put them on a pathway to permanent residency. Previously, this was only issued after a five-year period.

To coincide with the introduction of this permit, the Department of Justice created a new Stamp 1H which is issued to all doctors who hold a Multi-Site General Employment Permit. This new permission requires doctors to register yearly with the Department of Justice as well as providing a Stamp 1G permission to spouses of these doctors, allowing them to access the Labour Market without the need for an employment permit.

In addition to this permit, in March 2022, the opening of the temporary “Fast Track to Stamp 4 Permission” scheme was announced. All Non-EEA Doctors working in the state for more than 2 years while holding a General Employment Permit between 2018 – 2022, can apply to my department for a Stamp 4 Support Letter.

This scheme removed a large number of doctors from the employment permit system. It allowed the holder the right to work without the requirement to hold a valid employment permit. The scheme reopened in September 2022 to allow any doctors working in the State for 21 months or more to apply for a support letter and it remained open to 31 October 2022.

The table below shows the number of applications approved, the number of applications rejected and the total number of applications received from Doctors for a Stamp 4 support letter. This includes applications received from doctors who had previously held a critical skills employment permit.