Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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434. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the total administrative and employer cost of processing employment permits and associated recruitment of overseas workers in each of the past five years; and to compare this to the estimated fiscal loss associated with graduate emigration. [60961/25]

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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435. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if his Department has assessed the relative cost-effectiveness of investing in graduate retention initiatives compared to the recruitment of overseas skilled workers under the employment permit system. [60962/25]

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 434 and 435 together.

Ireland operates a managed employment permits system to grant employment permission to skilled workers from outside of the EEA. The system is highly responsive to areas of identified skills needs and labour shortages across the economy, while minimising the risk of disrupting Ireland’s labour market. The system is, by design, vacancy led and driven by the changing needs of the labour market.

The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment works closely with stakeholders across Government, in particular the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and its agencies, as well as industry and the education and training system, to build and retain a highly skilled workforce that serves the needs of the economy.

Ireland’s skills development policy is supported by a responsive national skills architecture, which aims to ensure that education and training provision is optimally aligned with identified skills needs within the enterprise base. This architecture is overseen by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, which provides the Secretariat for the National Skills Council. The role of this Council is to prioritise identified skills needs and advise on the allocation of resources to meet them. My Department, as well as IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, are members of the Council.

This skills needs intelligence is developed in close collaboration with enterprises, and in conjunction with Government, industry and education and training provider collaboration, ensures that identified skills needs are quickly addressed through the education and training system.

My Department also feeds into tertiary education strategies that takes into account existing skills shortages indicators across the wider labour market and future shifts in Ireland’s demographic profile that significantly impact our economic and fiscal position over the long-term.

Deficiencies that may exist for the tertiary education system can manifest themselves in our sectoral labour market gaps. Ireland uses the employment permits system to address these issues, but our policy approach dictates that the State prioritise and primarily rely on the IE/EU labour market. The data gathered and held by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment’s Employments Permit Unit provide detailed information into the occupations most frequently filled by skilled non-EEA nationals.

The employment permits system is managed through the operation of the Critical Skills Occupations List (CSOL) and the Ineligible Occupations List (IOL) which determine employments that are either in high demand or are ineligible for consideration for an employment permit. Priority and eligibility for an employment permit is subject to periodic review informed by the views of the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs and the Skills and Labour Market Research Unit of SOLAS; looking beyond the strategic objectives across government.

Employment permit trends also contributed to the recent IGEES report Recent Trends in Migration Flows Impacting the Irish Labour Market, which highlights that Ireland's migration flows have been substantial and Ireland's post-pandemic recovery has greatly benefitted from inward migration but also in the uptake in emigration, particularly amongst Irish nationals. The paper concludes with some indicative scenarios on migration flows out to 2030 bearing in mind the new Programme for Government commitment to generate 300,000 jobs over this period.

Over the past five years, permit volumes and fee receipts have increased significantly. These figures reflect the administrative cost recovery through fees; employer recruitment costs are not recorded by the Department.

Employment Permits and Fee Receipts (2020–2025)

*2025 figures are for January–October.