Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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929. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of people in the State on work permits who were paid the minimum wage or less; the number that were paid between the minimum wage and the average industrial wage; the number that were paid in excess of the average industrial wage, in each of the past five years, by sector, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42855/25]

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Ireland operates a managed employment permits system maximising the benefits of economic migration and minimising disruption to Ireland’s labour market.

The system is designed to facilitate the entry of appropriately skilled non-EEA nationals to fill skills and/or labour shortages required to develop and support enterprise for the benefit of our economy. However, this objective must be balanced by the need to ensure no suitably qualified Irish/EEA nationals are available to undertake the work and that the shortage is genuine one.

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

The Employment Permits Section of the Department informs me that most permits issued by the Department are either Critical Skills Employment Permits which currently have a Minimum Annual remuneration threshold of €38,000 or General Employment Permits, most of which currently have a Minimum Annual remuneration threshold of €34,000. These two permits make up approximately 93% of all permits issued. The average salary for all permits issued in 2024 was €48,927, the other years are included in the table below.

Also included below is a table which shows how many permits are issued for each salary band.

There are some permit types (Dependant/Partner/Spouse Employment Permit, Reactivation Employment Permit, Sport and Cultural Employment Permit, Exchange Agreement Employment Permit and Internship Employment Permit) which can be issued at a salary of the national minimum wage; however these permits account for less than 2% of permits issued.