I thank Senator Byrne for raising this issue and giving me the chance to address the Seanad on the matter. It is timely with regard to the process. Ireland operates a managed employment permits system, maximising the benefits of economic migration and minimising the risk of disrupting Ireland's labour market. The regime is designed to facilitate the entry of appropriately skilled non-EEA nationals to fill skills or labour shortages in the State required to develop and support enterprise for the benefit of our econo…

Again, I thank Senator Byrne for raising this issue. It is a very important area because we know the service our pharmacists provide to all of us. Certainly, they have been extremely busy in helping with the response to Covid-19 over the past couple of years. They do great work and it is important they can access the level of staff they need. Again, to clarify for the record, the IPU does engage quite a lot with our Department. It also feeds into our retail forum quite successfully and engages quite a lot. What is …

It is important to emphasise that Ireland's system of industrial relations is essentially voluntary in nature and that responsibility for the resolution of industrial disputes between employers and workers rests in the first instance with the employer, the workers and their representatives. The State provides the industrial relations dispute settlement mechanisms to support parties in their efforts to resolve their differences. The WRC and the Labour Court are independent offices of our Department. Recommendations …

I thank the Deputy. I am sorry I could not hear at the start. There was an issue with the sound. I know the Deputy has not named the case. I am not familiar with it because the details relating to it were not provided with the question.

It is a number of cases. The system is not legally binding. We urge all parties to these cases to honour the recommendations if they can and to follow the advice. That is how it works best. The arrangement has served us well over the last years. In these disputes, the recommendation comes from the WRC and Labour Court and should be followed as well as possible in most cases. We would always encourage that. The funding of any State-funded organisation is a matter for the Minister with responsibility for the area in …

We have been very clear here. We should respect the advice and guidance of the WRC. We encourage that. Naturally we ask all parties to do that and we do that on a regular basis be it public or private organisations. I am not familiar with the situations the Deputy is raising. If it is a funding issue it has to be directly raised with the Minister or Department with responsibility for the agency or organisation. I am happy to work with the Deputy on that. I do not have the details and am not going to try to comment …

The Deputy keeps saying that but he keeps referring to a situation I do not know about.

I thank Deputy Naughten for raising the question in respect of work permits. I agree with him on the issue of access to skills. Every company we talk to across the country raises the issue with us. The regional enterprise plans will be of major assistance in helping us focus our minds on this. I also refer to the regional skills fora and various national skills strategies working across the Department of Education as well. The solutions to this and the skills shortage are right across the system in developing skill…

I do not think any of us would stand over the processing time for permits over the last year. However, we have to recognise that the number of applications went up by 70% and those numbers are continuing to increase this year. It looks like there will be over 35,000 permits applied for this year. We have put an action plan together since last November under the guidance of the Tánaiste. We have trebled the number of staff working in this sector and more than trebled the number of permits being issued per week. This…

For non-trusted partners it is about 21 weeks. With the team of people involved now, we are quite happy that we will make great inroads into that time over the next couple of weeks. The 3,000 permits that were applied for since October in the horticulture and meat industry sectors are nearly all processed now which is a big bang. That will help us focus on bringing the timeline well down from 21 weeks.

A couple of issues there are not under our Department. I understand the report on social housing limits is with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, at the moment and he hopes to bring forward those changes very soon. He took questions on the matter here last week. That would be a positive step. We all recognise that they have not changed since 2011. The social housing barrier and the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme, were changed a number of years ago to make it easier for people to return to work. The pre…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 6, 33, 37, 52, 58 and 59 together. I thank Deputy Connolly and her colleagues for tabling them. As we have outlined previously to both Houses, universal and equitable access to safe, effective and affordable vaccines, diagnostics and treatments is crucial in the global fight against Covid-19. This is at the heart of the Irish Government's international response to the pandemic, and governments in the developed world must do more to ensure this happens. As a member of the EU, we have…

I was not at that committee but will be happy to read back over the submissions on that. I have not had a chance to get a sense of what is being put forward. Much of the debate on this, including the debates we had in these Houses, focused on supply. The EU always took the position that that would not necessarily be the issue and there were many other parts of it, including the capacity of those countries to administer the vaccine and the demand. It is clear now that supply is not the issue and the EU was right. Th…

The Deputies have raised a few issues there. The debate has not changed much. They are very much focused on IP and the IP regime. The position of the EU has always been that that is not where the sole focus should be. The Deputies and I have differed on that for many months. I am not going to change their minds here. I am happy to consider the letter that was sent to us by the committee and to respond on it. I have always said that a combination of public and private money is being invested in solutions in this reg…

I begin by thanking the Deputies for contributing to this Private Members' Bill on a living wage. I have been present for some of the debate and was following online before that. I thank Deputies for their contributions. The Bill the Labour Party has brought forward is timely in light of where we are with our own plans under the programme for Government. The Government, like many people in the House, believes a legacy of the pandemic must be better pay, terms and conditions for everyone but particularly those on lo…

I thank Senator Wall for tabling this Commencement matter for discussion. I am happy to address it and to explain to him the reasons and the rationale behind this, as well as to discuss what we are doing with working with the local enterprise offices, LEOs, in Kildare. As the Senator will know, the mid-east regional enterprise plan brings together the three counties of Wicklow, Kildare and Meath, to work together with all the business development agencies, LEOs, local authorities, education systems and chambers of …

I again thank Senator Wall for raising this matter and giving me a chance to explain to him and the people of Athy what the situation is. The bottom line is that the area would not have met the criteria. We do not set the criteria; they are set by the European Union. The evidence on which the criteria are judged is not made up either. It is based on facts and data gathered in Kildare and in Athy. The bottom line is that it would not have passed the test. Senator Wall might have a different version of the facts, but…

While it is a positive for Athy that the county is doing so well, I accept that in County Kildare, as in all counties, there are particular areas where we want to see more jobs growth and more opportunities. There is no denying that. However, when we are dealing with European state aid rules, we must fit the criteria and in this case Kildare scores too high, which is a positive in one way, but a negative when we want to secure the funding Senator Wall talks about. Thankfully, it is only one part of the funding, and…

Was the question answered?

I made the point very clearly that the Kildare data, including the data for Athy, would not fit the criteria. That is the bottom line. I have been very clear on that. I cannot be any clearer.