Immigration rules ‘need radical reform’

IRELAND’S immigration rules need radical reform to fast-track visa applications for overseas finance workers, it was claimed yesterday.

Financial Services Ireland director Aileen O’Donoghue urged the Government to adopt special migration measures for the financial sector.

“Our industrial policy is geared to attracting investment from key non-EU jurisdictions such as the US, but our migration policy makes it difficult to bring senior staff to Ireland,” she said. “This does not make sense and needs to be reformed swiftly.”

She told the Financial Services Ireland annual conference in Dublin: “Unlike other sectors of the economy, the Irish financial sector needs graduates from outside the EU to serve those markets which we are exporting financial services to.

“Special measures are needed to accommodate the strong forecast for growth in the Irish financial sector. Firstly, we need to establish fast-track measures for specific occupations in the work visa/authorisation scheme — similar measures already exist for healthcare, construction and ICT. Secondly, we need to have the intra-company transfer scheme reintroduced to allow the transfer of key staff from non-EU jurisdictions.”

She said Ireland will need 300,000 new graduates over the next five years to meet demand.