The Restaurants Association of Ireland is calling for recruitment of "specialist European workers" to "save the season" this coming winter.
The body represents restaurants, coffee shops, gastropubs, hotel restaurants, golf clubs and cookery schools and recently published its pre-budget submission. The submission is calling for a number of specialised workers ahead of the busy Christmas season including accommodation managers, restaurant and catering establishment managers and catering and bar managers.
The association has asked for "timely processing of applications critical for workers and businesses; visas, work permits and PPS numbers". The organisations states: "Whilst we appreciate that there was a backlog it was confirmed at the end of January 2022 that processing times in Cork and Dublin were then at 4 to 5 weeks, despite committing to processing the backlog of 5,000 application two months ago the processing times in Dublin and Cork at least, have gotten worse and now have applicants waiting 9+ weeks with no update.
