Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent)
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758. To ask the Minister for Health the number of non-EU carers who have taken up work permits to work in the care industry in Ireland; the total number of permits available; the reasons for the poor uptake; the steps he intends to take to improve the situation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24228/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment provided access to the General Employment Permit for the role of Health Care Assistant in June 2021.

The Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment have confirmed that in 2022, 2,860 Employment Permits were issued to Health Care Assistants and 16 employment permits were issued to Home Carers. So far this year, 947 employment permits have issued to Health Care Assistants and 68 employment permits have issued to Home Carers. There is a quota of 1,000 employment permits for Home Carers. There is no quota for Health Care Assistants.

To examine the significant workforce challenges in the home-support and nursing home sectors in Ireland, Minister Butler established the cross-departmental Strategic Workforce Advisory Group in March 2022. Working closely with key stakeholders, the Advisory Group made 16 recommendations to address challenges in frontline carer roles in the home support and long-term residential care sectors.

In October 2022, the Strategic Workforce Advisory Group acknowledged that, with an unemployment rate of 4.2%, providers who are seeking to recruit care-workers are going to continue to face staff-shortages. After extensive consultation with key stakeholders, the Strategic Workforce Advisory Group recommended the removal of home-support workers from the Ineligible Occupations List to enable providers to recruit care-workers from outside the EU and EEA (Recommendation 9). The arrangement for employment permits for home-support workers came into force in December 2022 and replicates those currently in place for Health Care Assistants in nursing homes, with 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.

The uptake of work permits is being monitored by the Department of Health. As implementation of the recommendations of the Strategic Workforce Advisory Group progresses it is envisaged that a number of the other recommendations will be complementary to Recommendation 9 and will result in an increase in uptake of work permits in the home care sector.