Whilst the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is required to issue work permits where it is established that the prospective employee is a key employee or an intracorporate transferee in an international company which has a presence or proposes to establish a presence in Ireland the transferee has been required to submit an application.
The information received from the Department advises the following changes:-
- Work permits are no longer required for intracorporate transfers.
- Work permits are no longer required for spouses of EEA nationals or for non-EEA nationals who have had a child born in Ireland.
- Non-EEA students graduating from an IT/language course in Ireland will no longer need to leave the country and return with a work permit to take up employment here in these sectors.
Details of these changes will not be published for at least a month. However, the changes do take effect immediately and any work permit applications recently applied for will be returned together with the application fee if they relate to the above.
For employees on intracorporate transfers, it will now be sufficient for that employee to hold a letter from his employer (from outside the EEA) to the effect that he/she has been sent on secondment to Ireland for a purpose and a period to be specified in that letter. The employee should obtain a second letter from the Irish company to which he has been seconded confirming the details as set out in the letter from his employer outside the state. Both letters will need to be originals and should contain contact details for the personnel departments of each company in the event that immigration officials need to verify the details.
It will still be necessary for the employees to register with the Aliens Office (if they are working in the Dublin area) or with their local police station (if they are working outside Dublin). The police will place a stamp on the person's passport to state that they are permitted to remain in Ireland for a period of up to one year and it appears that the period can be extended.
As it will be at least a month before immigration/police are aware of these changes, the Department of Justice has suggested to us that if we have clients who have employees travelling to Ireland before the end of February that we (or somebody else in Ireland acting for the Irish employer) contact the Department to give them the arrival date of these persons. The Department of Justice will then contact the immigration officials at the airport to ensure that these persons clear immigration without difficulty. The Department of Justice have told us that after the end of February, all immigration officials should be aware of the above changes and it will no longer be necessary to contact them in advance of a person's arrival.
If a person does not fall within the above referred to categories, they will, of course, still be required to apply for a work permit.
Note:
This information has been supplied to us verbally by staff from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Whilst every effort has been made by us to verify the accuracy of this information, clients are advised that the details given may be subject to change when the Department issues regulations or guidelines.
This article was intended to provide general guidelines. Specialist advice should be sought about specific facts.