I thank the Deputy for his question. As he mentioned, legal migration plays an essential and very positive role in Ireland's society and economy. Legal pathways are vital to addressing labour shortages in the economy. I have been working closely with the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment to ensure that Ireland's legal employment pathways are efficient and as convenient as possible. In May 2024, Government approval was secured for our plan to introduce a single permit to both work and live in Ireland. This decision followed detailed engagement by an interdepartmental group to explore the feasibility of the measure. As the Deputy is aware, there currently are employment permits. He mentioned the problems in having employment permits, visa applications and residency permits all processed separately. A detailed plan has been developed to unify these processes and an implementation team is working to introduce a single permit. Once this is in place, Ireland can then seek to opt into the EU single permit directive. This is a complex and technical project, involving linking two separate IT systems, and is likely to require legislative amendment. The project is due to be completed in 2027. In the short term, steps are being taken to streamline the process so that information requests and checks are not duplicated. The customer experience will improve through aligning online information and introducing a single payment model. These steps will simplify the process for people while the common application platform is being developed. My Department is making a significant investment in the technology to fully digitise the immigration service. Also, changes were made last year to allow spouses and partners of employment permit holders to themselves take up employment without the requirement for a separate authorisation. All of these initiatives are designed to ensure the long-term sustainability of the economy and to support and recognise the vital contribution made by legal migrants to our economy and society.
Sentiment score: 0.25
To give the Deputy an idea of what the next steps are, an implementation team has been established, chaired jointly with the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, which will commence implementation of the single permit model. The adoption of the single permit approach is expected to be done by 2027. The programme will be delivered on a phased basis. The new application platform will be developed with customer benefits in the shorter term. Shorter term actions will be taken to remove the duplication of data collection and checks through improvement in communications. The medium-term actions will include the implementation of data sharing and integration between my Department and the Department of enterprise. We will obviously make every effort to progress, not just in meeting that 2027 deadline, but in having the systems in place to stop that duplication as quickly as possible, which is the initial step. For people applying who are experiencing those difficulties, as the Deputy quite rightly indicated, between the visa and the permit, we are trying to get that process moving as fast as possible.
Sentiment score: 0.09
There is an ongoing process in the Department to reach out to try to simplify and put the application process in place. The answer to the Deputy's question is "Yes". By 2027, it will be a complete one-stop shop and the process will be coming. That is the target date we are working towards for the completion of the process. In the intervening period, my counterpart in the Department of enterprise and I are willing to see what we can do to ensure that we have better engagement with sectors, where it is needed between the two Departments, to ensure we streamline the process in advance of 2027. I fully take account of what the Deputy said about there very much being different requirements and difficulties within different sectors, but it is possible to work through those and work to have a much quicker process in the medium term based on the current processes. We will then have the complete changeover in 2027.
Sentiment score: 0.11