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.
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"This has resulted in a number of employees from within the EEA choosing to leave Ireland in favour of another member state as processing times for PPS numbers and access to the work market is taking too long."
The RAI is also calling on the government to extend the 9 per cent VAT rate, which was introduced due to the Covid-19 pandemic, to be extended beyond February 2023. The RAI wants it to run until February 2025. The association pointed to a need for a national tourism and hospitality training authority in its submission.
This authority's functions would include overseeing policy development in hospitality training needs, development of national training structures and programmes, development of a training charter and an official National Code of Practice and engaging with secondary schools for the recruitment, training and formal education of young school-leavers to prepare them for the industry.
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