A key strategy committee on immigration will advise the Government to postpone for up to two years its plan for a new work visa system to attract nonEU citizens to fill jobs vacancies because of a lack of information on skills shortages.
The Inter-Departmental Age ncy Group on Immigration Policy says in a draft report that despite the fact Ireland will need 200,000 jobs to be filled by immigrants between now and 2006, a detailed breakdown of skills shortages and vacancies is needed before a new work visa programme can be put in place.
The Tanaiste, Ms Harney, and the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, proposed the work visa programme as part of a radical two-tiered immigration system last November. It was one of the initiatives designed to defuse the controversy over asylum-seekers.
The idea was to use the new visas to target software workers in India as well as workers from Central and Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia to meet the various skills needs. The draft report, dated the middle of February and seen last night by The Irish Times, states that ideally citizens of third world countries should be allowed to come to Ireland to seek employment once it has been established their skills are in demand.
They would come on a working permit and would leave if they had not secured employment within three months.
However, the report, due to go to Cabinet in the next month, states: "The group were unable to recommend such a system as at present there is only a broad breakdown of skill shortages and vacancies. More data for national services need to be made available before people are permitted to travel and seek employment."
The report says the proposed new Immigrations Agency should process working visas in accordance with policy parameters to be developed by the Departments of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Justice, Equality and Law Reform together with FAS and Forfas.
"Data of sufficient quality should become available over the next two years to enable a working visa system as described come into operation," the report says.
The Immigration Agency should advise and adjudicate on the issue of the working visas.
The report says the current work permits system should continue pending the development of policy allowing the introduction of the proposed visa system.
At present, non-EU nationals need a work permit to take up employment in Ireland and more than 6,000 were issued last year.
The report says immigration flows projected to 2,006 are 336,000, or 48,000 annually. Some 200,000 of these will be employed in new jobs.
Of the 200,000, half will be Irish returning home, a further substantial number will be citizens of EU and European Economic Area countries.
"Such inflows will place additional pressure on domestic and social infrastructure by exacerbating an overheated housing market, contributing to transport congestion and putting extra pressures on services such as education, health and the social security system," says the report.
It warns that in the absence of immigration, labour shortages will raise wage costs, diminishing competitiveness and output.