I thank the Senator for raising awareness of this issue. I was not aware of the change made in 2006. It was not up in flashing lights, but it has certainly had an impact. It has affected people, mainly of the younger generation, as the Senator said. It is worth examining the matter and the Senator has made a very compelling case for doing so. I will provide some background on this matter. Prior to October 2016, as the Senator said, full category B licence holders, on passing a driving test, were permitted to drive …

The Government is finalising a package of measures to respond to the inflationary measures which are putting significant pressure on families and individuals, and have been doing so over the past couple of months. They build on the changes announced in the budget, where there was a tax package and there was a social welfare package. There was a minimum wage increase recommendation accepted, which kicked in last month. We are recognising that people are under pressure out there right across the system. We also recog…

I again thank Senator Ward for raising this issue. I will certainly talk to the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, who is sorry she could not be here today, and to the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, about it. I might not be in a position to convince her but I have no doubt that, with the arguments he has just put to me, the Senator will be able to if he gets a chance. I will encourage her to take some time to listen to this debate and perhaps to meet the Senator to tease the issue out. It is certainly worth looking …

We must be careful in relation to taxes and jobs as well. Much of the time, the changes Deputy Barry puts forward in relation to the tax system are in our view anti-jobs and anticompetitive. That will not help us as we try to drive a recovery from Covid through a jobs-led recovery.

I have nothing more to add bar that the Government is responding to this. I listened to Deputy Barry, yesterday and again today, with his call for action. I have listened to the Deputy in the past on other disputes and other issues as well. People who followed Deputy Barry's advice previously often got bad advice from him and were misinformed or brought down the wrong path. I would ask anybody to look at what the Government is doing. We are engaging through the mechanisms we have always had - our response to the Lo…

I would ask anybody who wants to follow Deputy Barry's advice to look at his record over the past two years and the advice he doled out.

I thank the Deputy for his question and for his support for enterprise centres and the general principle of investing in and strengthening them. I spent a day recently in counties Cavan and Monaghan and saw the benefits of investing in enterprise centres and enterprise teams in those counties and indeed, throughout the country. I acknowledge the work that is being carried out locally through the involvement of the local authorities, the LEOs and all involved in running enterprise centres, digital hubs and so on. Th…

I note the point the Deputy raised. I recall reviewing that site and agree that there is great potential there to create jobs. The Departments of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Rural and Community Development are very keen to develop working spaces, sites, office space and factory space for those who want to create jobs. We are determined to have a jobs-led recovery as we come out of Covid. We can achieve that but it means that we have to support those who are involved in creating jobs and part of that involv…

The Minister, the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, and myself hope to launch regional enterprise plans during February. Part of that will be funding a range of actions in different counties along the concept outlined by the Deputy. I think we are launching one in Cavan. That gives an opportunity through the funding set out, which is quite substantial, over the next four or five years to fund those three-year plans. Actions are being put forward that would achieve what we want to achieve. I agree that in some of our …

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. I will give her the short answer first because I know that is what she wants. It is to be hoped we will be able to reopen that process within the next couple of weeks. That is the aim. That then takes a couple of months and decisions will probably be made around April or May at the latest. In a few weeks we will open the consultation and see where it goes after that. I will give the Deputy the background to that as well. The occupations lists for employment permits are subj…

Yes. There are two lists. There is a non-essential list as well. The critical list is for one category and the other category is the one the Deputy is after and that it would be opened up to permits. We changed that for health care assistants last year.

It is a good question. I do not know. I have not sat around the table. It is officials from all the various Departments who are on it. I imagine there is quite a strong gender balance because the majority of officials I come across demonstrate to me a gender balance. However, I will certainly check it out for the Deputy. To be very clear, the evidence gathered around this, which is in conjunction with the expert group on future skills needs, labour market research and SOLAS, is that it is in specific areas, in this…

When we undertake the labour market analysis, we try to look at short-term solutions in addition to long-term trends. The permits operation should not be seen as a long-term solution. It is an absolutely temporary one, which we have used to respond to many sectors over the past year. The Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Butler, is leading this and trying to put a strategy in place to deal with this matter. We will work very closely with her on that. To focus on what the Deputy asked, and to be …

No.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. As I am not familiar with the particular situation to which she referred, I will comment generally on the overall situation when companies are taken over or there is a transfer of undertakings. I do not have the details of the case she raised but I certainly will get them and look into the situation. I was not aware of the company to which the Deputy was referring until she mentioned it just now. The European Communities (Protection of Employees on Transfer of Undertaking…

I disagree with the Deputy on that. There are quite a lot of protections under our employment laws and we expect any company, no matter what it is, to work within those laws. I gave commitments in regard to other situations last year, including that of the Debenhams workers, that we would look to see whether we can strengthen the laws in any situation where a company is being sold or bought out or where redundancies arise. We are working on that. However, it is untrue to say that workers are not protected. Many peo…

-----in general, I agree with the Deputy that all of those who are involved in the retail sector and the security sector right throughout Covid-19 stood up and provided a top-class service to this country. They were on the front line as much as anybody else. In most cases that I have seen, that has been properly recognised by their employers. I hope that that would be the case as well. I speak in general here, because I chair the retail forum and I discuss much of this with the retail sector on a regular basis. I a…

I thank Deputy Cowen for raising this issue, as well as for putting forward those two cases, which are familiar stories about the system, on the floor of the House. I am happy to take him through what we are doing to address this, as well as to give him some context on it. At the start, however, I want to say that I totally agree with the Deputy that this is not an acceptable timeframe. I will not stand over it, our Department is not happy with it, and neither is the Tánaiste. The Taoiseach has addressed it here as…

I assure Deputy Cowen that every effort will be made by our Department to put enough staff in place and to change the system to make sure we can process these permits. As I have outlined, there has been an increase in staff on these teams. There are more than 50 additional people in the system and many of the existing staff are working overtime and every night they are allowed to work in order to deal with the backlog. With the plan we have put in place, we will get through this backlog in the next few months and g…

I thank People Before Profit-Solidarity for their motion and for this discussion. I recognise that the context in which we are having this discussion concerns the pressure that families and everybody are under at the moment to pay all of their bills due to inflation and increased costs. Some of those reasons are outside of our control as a Government but we are trying to respond with a number of initiatives across various Departments to ease that pressure and make a difference. I think we will all hope and agree th…