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Kim Wong, director, and Jane Pilkington, partner, Deloitte, key presenters at the Shannon Chamber corporate immigration workshop help in Treacy’s Oakwood Hotel Shannon.

With Ireland’s full employment causing persistent skills shortages in several sectors and occupations, and presenting key talent challenges for many companies, an increasing number of businesses are looking to non-EEA jurisdictions to resolve their skills gaps. Arising from this, human resources’ practitioners will need to familiarise themselves with the requirements of leveraging the non-EEA national ‘brain gain’.

This was the sentiment expressed by two experts in corporate immigration, Jane Pilkington, partner, and Kim Wong, director, with Deloitte, at a recent Shannon Chamber workshop on the topic with member companies.

They provided a comprehensive overview of the Irish corporate immigration system covering issues such as the three-step permission process, self-sponsored permissions for non-EEA nationals already in Ireland, compliance and risk issues, legal obligations for employers, and an insight into what the future holds.

The audience of recruitment leaders from companies in a wide range of sectors learnt about the nine different types of employment permits issued by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, required by all non-EEA nationals who don’t have an existing or suitable immigration permission; the employment entry visa issued by the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, and the Irish resident permit required by all non-EEA nationals residing in Ireland for more than ninety days, issued generally for one year and renewable in advance of expiry.

The main immigration permission stamps process were explained, namely, the Stamp 2 immigration permission to study an official full-time course for a specified period and subject to conditions; the Stamp 1G granted to Stamp 2 holders on completion of their studies at an Irish university, allowing them to work in any role, other than self-employment; the Stamp 1G granted to eligible spouses or partners giving them to right to work, except in self-employment and, the Stamp 4, allowing holders to take up employment in any role, including self-employment, without the requirement to hold an employment permit.

Attendees were also briefed on compliance and risk issues associated with corporate immigration, most notably the necessity of undertaking right-to-work checks before onboarding an employee, together with ensuring that non-EEA national employees have a continuing right-to-work.

They also were made aware of the risk of being subject to a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) inspection, given that 5,156 inspections were completed in 2024 with 2,108 found to have contraventions of employment law. Prosecutions of employers for such contraventions was up 27% on 2023 and yielded successful outcomes in 141 of 175 cases and €2,16 million was recovered in unpaid wages. These stark facts were mitigated by the fact that most employers inspected are compliant or become compliant during the WRC inspection process.

Shannon Chamber CEO Helen Downes commenting on the workshop said that the information shared is so critical at a time when companies are being challenged to recruit talent to sustain their operations.

“As a Chamber, it is imperative that we keep our members informed of any changes being made that impact the employment of non-EEA nationals. With labour market needs modernised and made easier, employees being given the right to change employer under the same employment permit in limited circumstances or change employer after nine months as opposed to twelve formerly, amongst the changes made in the past eighteen months, periodic updates of this nature are extremely useful.

“Having contributed to the recent review of the Occupations Lists, we look forward to continuing our linkage with the experts in Deloitte to ensure that our members stay the right side of the law when onboarding non-EEA talent,” added Ms Downes.

Deloitte has kindly offered a free once-off 30-minute session to Shannon Chamber members who would like to discuss their corporate immigration questions with market leading experts with this offer valid up to end of 2025.