Chef shortage forces restaurants to recruit from abroad

The shortage of chefs throughout the country has reached crisis point and could threaten the success of the tourism industry recovery, TDs and senators were told yesterday.

Restaurateurs said the industry is now facing a huge crisis and has to look outside the country for chefs as cutbacks at the start of the recession has seen fully-fitted state-owned training centres lying idle and decommissioned throughout the country.

Now the joint committee on jobs, enterprise, and innovation is to call in three government departments to see if a solution can be found before the chef shortage escalates.

Committee chairman Damien English said it was a crazy position that 1,000 workplace apprenticeships could be available and that a solution was needed.

The move comes after the lobby group which represents restaurants across the country — Restaurants Association of Ireland — told the committee that it was proposing 1,000 workplace apprenticeships for the restaurant sector with participants allowed access to training allowances equal to those given to Fás apprentices.

It also wants investment in training to be offset against employers’ PRSI.

Association CEO Adrian Cummins said that while it was granted funding to set up a professional cookery course that would take 100 long-term unemployed off the Live Register and train them in an intensive workplace programme, greater investment was needed.

“Job positions are there, but the necessary skilled workers are not,” he said.

Mr Cummins said there were currently 300 vacancies in the restaurant sector but it had to look abroad to find chefs.

He said a number of Fáilte Ireland courses were cut four years ago when the recession took hold and the industry was now bearing the brunt of the cuts.

“Unfortunately, there are fully-fitted state- owned training centres lying idle and decommissioned throughout the country. The Restaurants Association of Ireland needs assistance to get these training centres up and running to get people trained and back to work,” he said.

Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín said it was “bananas” there was no movement on the training issue. Senator Feargal Quinn said he was “jolted by these vacancies”.

Mr Cummins also told the committee the restaurant industry is starting to see a three-tier recovery across the country.

“In Dublin city centre, around Dáil Éireann, restaurants are doing well, paying their bills and we are beginning to see growth and new openings,” he said.

However, he added that it is a different picture around the country where some restaurants and cafés “are on life support”.