Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will not delay the House. I will just make a few observations. If there is an opportunity for Ireland to opt into this process and have some influence on it, then that is what we should do. The Minister of State himself pointed out that we have been issuing 31,000 work permits. I think he will be aware of what I am going to say, but changes in the work permit scheme are coming and these will result in a rise in the base rate of pay. I have a concern about this aspect in terms of how work permits are working for all sectors of the economy. I understand that we want to arrive at a situation where we will have a reasonable minimum wage, one that provides a living wage for people. We need to do this. However, we must also remain competitive. In fact, just because people are coming in on the lowest level in the context of work permits, this does not mean that is all they are getting paid. People are getting bonuses and getting overtime as well. We must, therefore, examine this issue in a sectoral context.

Equally, if this proposal is worked out and signed up to, as I understand it, this would offer Irish people the opportunity to go and work in another EU country. I understand, however, that its main drive is to allow people from third countries to access EU markets. This is probably something reflective of the Australian points system used years ago for those seeking to access work in that country. I will point out to the Minister of State, however, and I am sure he has received this type of communication himself, that we have a significant number of people who are already here and qualified. Some of these people are even qualified in medicine and in law, but cannot get registration approval here.

It is terrible to think that people like doctors and senior specialist nurses, some of whom I have met, who are college educated are doing catering jobs because we have not found a pathway for them to get authorised to work at their qualified level. We should be doing that first.

It will not be news to the Minister of State that our housing shortage is a significant impediment to bringing the skills we need into the country and also being able to offer people a pathway into housing and homeownership. That applies to our own people, some of whom are migrating because they feel they will not be able to get on the property ladder. While we are full employment, recent CSO data for the south-east region show that the job quality is not what it is in other regions. It is performing more poorly. That could be improved if we could get better sustainable housing and higher class jobs. They are all part of the difficulties we have in the economy at present.

If we have a way to solve some of the problems we need to solve in providing skills to our economy, which is at full employment, we should certainly look at that. We should opt in and then figure out if we can look at the policy if it is a good idea. At the same time, it should not be a slam dunk that we agree to opt in to this directive whenever it is done. We should take a cautious look at it.

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