______________________________________________
For Oral Answer on : 07/04/2022
Question Number(s): 47,32 Question Reference(s): 18784/22, 18783/22
Department: Enterprise, Trade and Employment
Asked by: David Stanton T.D.
______________________________________________


QUESTION



* To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise; Trade and Employment the measures that his Department has put in place to deal with the delays in the processing of employment permit applications and requests to expedite employment permit applications; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

– David Stanton T.D.


For ORAL answer on Thursday, 7 April, 2022.

* To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise; Trade and Employment the number of employment permit applications received by his Department per month form October 2021 to March 2022, inclusive; the number of applications processed by his Department per month in this period; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

– David Stanton T.D.


For ORAL answer on Thursday, 7 April, 2022.

REPLY


I will answer questions 18783/22 and 18784 together.


My Department recognises the impact delays in the processing times for work permits has for businesses and their workers.  


My Department experienced a significant increase in applications for employment permits in the past year, impacting on processing times.  From the start of January to the end of December 2021, some 27,666 applications were received, representing a 69% increase over the same period in 2020 (16,293) and a 47% increase on 2019 (18,811), which itself represented an 11 year high in applications.


My Department has issued 16,275 employment permits in 2021, and processed a total of 17,968 applications which represents a significant volume of activity.  In addition, the extension of categories of employment permits following the latest Review of the Occupational Lists has increased the demand for employment permits.


My Department and I are very conscious of the current timeframes for processing employment permit applications and the staff of the Employment Permits section are committed to reducing these.


An plan of action is being implemented by officials in Employment Permits team. It has increased resources and implemented more efficient methods of processing applications, including removing hundreds of doctors from the permits system. The processing team has trebled in size and daily output has more than tripled compared to 2021 levels.

Since the implementation of this plan, the Employment Permits section has made positive progress to reduce the current backlog reducing the number of applications awaiting processing from 11,181 in January 2022 to 8,773 at the end of March 2022. Officials expect to see a further significant improvement in this backlog by the end of Q2 of 2022.


Waiting time for Critical Skills Employment Permits (CSEPs) have been more than halved in the past seven weeks.  Waiting times for CSEPs are 6 weeks for Trusted Partner and 8 Weeks for Standards.  These stood at 14 weeks for Trusted Partners and 21 weeks for Standards only eight weeks ago. The Department plans to maintain processing times for all CSEP applications at approximately its current level for all of Q2, on the assumption that demand remains at current levels. The waiting time for other permit types will fall considerably in Q2.


If a permit is urgently required, an applicant may request to have an application expedited.  A request to have an application expedited will only be considered in exceptional cases.  The Department can only consider a request to expedite an employment permit application where a detailed business case is provided.

Details of the exceptional case must be submitted to the Department on the attached expedite request form, which is a prerequisite for DETE to consider any such request.

Once the business case is completed it should be submitted to Employmentpermits@enterprise.gov.ie for consideration.  It is important to point out that the completion of a business case does not guarantee that an expedite will be facilitated.

As requested the number of employment permit applications received by my Department per month in the period from October 2021 to March 2022 is set out in the table below. The number of applications processed by my Department per month in this period is also set out in this table.

MonthOct 2021Nov 2021Dec 2021Jan 2022Feb 2022March 2022
Applications Received3,1893,7933,6062,4762,4242,867
Applications Processed1,7561,8462,2572,5412,8784,126