Managed Overseas Recruitment for Irish Employers — Permits Included
Irish employers across healthcare, agriculture, construction, and hospitality have been unable to fill key roles locally for years. CA Recruitment places skilled Filipino workers with Irish businesses and manages the full DETE employment permit process from start to finish. You identify the role. We do everything else.
What is managed overseas recruitment?
When an Irish employer hires from overseas without help, they face two problems at once: finding the right candidate in another country, and navigating a permit process most businesses have never used before. Do one wrong and the other is wasted effort.
Managed overseas recruitment means a specialist agency handles both on your behalf. Candidate sourcing, vetting, reference checks, DETE permit applications, employer compliance checks, visa coordination, arrival logistics — all of it. Your involvement is to confirm the role requirements, interview your shortlisted candidate, and sign the employment contract. CA Recruitment manages every step in between.
This matters particularly for Filipino recruitment. Hiring from the Philippines is not just an Irish process — it involves compliance on both sides. On the Irish side: the DETE General Employment Permit (GEP), the Labour Market Needs Test (LMNT), WRC employer compliance. On the Philippine side: DMW accreditation, OEC (Overseas Employment Certificate) processing, pre-departure medical, and departure clearance. An agency that only understands one side of this process will cost you time and money. CA Recruitment operates on both.
The CA Recruitment process
Every placement follows the same structured path. Nothing is skipped. Nothing is left to the employer to figure out.
Step 1 — Free initial consultation
The first conversation is free and takes around 20 minutes. Monette confirms the permit route for your specific role, checks your 50:50 EEA workforce ratio (at least 50% of your employees must be EEA nationals at the time of permit application — a common stumbling block for first-time applicants), and gives you a realistic timeline and fixed quote. No obligation at this stage.
Step 2 — Labour Market Needs Test
Before DETE will accept a General Employment Permit application, you must demonstrate that no suitable Irish or EEA candidate was available. This is done through the Labour Market Needs Test — a mandatory 28-day advertising requirement. CA Recruitment manages this for you: we place the advertisements on Jobs Ireland (DSP Employment Services) and at least one additional online platform, document every application received, record interview outcomes, and prepare the rejection rationale DETE requires. The LMNT takes 28 days. It cannot be shortened.
Step 3 — DETE permit application
Once the LMNT is complete, CA Recruitment submits your GEP application to DETE through the EPOS portal. We prepare all employer-side documentation — Tax Clearance Certificate, business registration, employment contract, full LMNT records — and all candidate-side documentation: passport, qualifications, employment history, references. DETE currently processes new GEP applications in approximately 8 to 12 weeks. Processing times vary — check enterprise.gov.ie for live figures. The GEP fee is €1,000 for a permit of up to 24 months.
Step 4 — Candidate sourcing and vetting (runs in parallel)
While the DETE application is being processed, CA Recruitment is sourcing and vetting your candidate from the Philippines. Monette has direct community connections and operates through a DMW-accredited Philippine partner agency. Every candidate is interviewed, reference-checked, and qualification-verified before they are presented to you. For care sector roles, we verify QQI Level 5 equivalency. For roles with regulated qualifications, we flag any recognition issues before the permit is submitted.
Step 5 — D-visa and arrival
Once DETE issues the permit, your worker applies for an Irish Employment D-visa at the Irish Embassy in Manila (applications processed through VFS Philippines). This typically takes 4 to 8 weeks. CA Recruitment prepares the visa application file. We also coordinate pre-departure logistics: OEC processing through our DMW-accredited partner, pre-departure medical, and arrival planning. When your worker lands in Ireland, we support the early onboarding steps — IRP registration, PPS number application, and practical settling-in guidance.
Sectors and roles we fill
CA Recruitment places Filipino workers across five sectors. Each has its own permit nuances and role-specific requirements — all of which we manage.
Healthcare and care
Care assistant, healthcare support worker, home support worker, and registered nurse roles. For care assistant placements, we verify that candidates hold qualifications equivalent to QQI Level 5 in Healthcare Support — most Filipino applicants hold a BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) or equivalent healthcare diploma. For registered nurses, we initiate NMBI (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland) registration in parallel with the GEP process — not after, which is the mistake that adds months to the timeline. CA Recruitment is the agency that Irish care homes use when they need someone who understands both the DETE permit route and the HIQA compliance requirements for overseas care staff. No other agency in this space combines that knowledge with direct Philippines sourcing.
Agriculture
Dairy operatives, pig unit workers, horticulture and harvest staff, general farm labourers, and agri-machinery operatives. Agriculture placements are typically straightforward on the permit side, but the 50:50 ratio check matters — many smaller farms are close to the threshold and need to plan before advertising. We've placed workers with pig farms, dairy operations, and tillage farms across Leinster and Munster.
Construction
General site labourers, skilled tradespeople, groundwork and civils operatives, plant operators, and construction managers. For construction placements, we advise on post-arrival site safety requirements — Safe Pass and manual handling are completed after arrival in Ireland, not before departure. WRC compliance documentation is included in every placement. We work with Irish contractors from SME builders to larger commercial projects.
Hospitality
Chefs (all levels), kitchen porters, front-of-house staff, and hotel housekeeping roles. Hospitality placements often have seasonal timing pressures — the permit process takes 6 to 8 months, which means a summer hire needs to be started in January or February. We advise every hospitality client on timing before they commit to the process.
Food production
Meat processing operatives, food production workers, and factory floor roles. The lower pay threshold (€16.12/hr — €32,691 per year on a 39-hour week) applies to meat processors alongside healthcare support workers and horticulture roles, which affects the economics of food production placements.
Who we work with
CA Recruitment works with Irish SME businesses that have tried and failed to fill roles locally. Our clients range from family farms to care home operators to construction contractors. Named clients we work with include:
- PJ Ryan — Ballymorris Pig Farm (agriculture)
- Hannah Ryan — Doon Farm Enterprise (agriculture)
- Ballyfaskin Pig and Dairy Farm (agriculture)
- Joe Colville — Ecoville Construction (construction)
- Jola Engineering / PE Services (engineering/construction)
- Michael Irwin — Irwins Megastore (retail)
These are businesses that had been advertising locally for months without success. Most of them had never used an overseas recruitment agency before. The permit process was the main reason they had hesitated — and the reason they came to CA Recruitment once they decided to move.
Why CA Recruitment
Filipino-owned, Ireland-based
CA Recruitment is owned and run by Monette, a Filipino national based in Tipperary. Monette navigated the Irish permit system herself before building CA Recruitment around it. She has direct community connections in the Philippines and genuine knowledge of what the sourcing process looks like on the ground — not as a theory, but as practice. When your candidate is going through DMW processing, pre-departure medical, and departure clearance in Manila, you want an agency that has people who understand that side of the process. A generic Irish recruitment agency does not.
Full permit management — you do not touch the paperwork
CA Recruitment handles every DETE communication, every document, every application form. Employers who have attempted the GEP process independently — or used agencies that handed back the paperwork — come to us specifically because they do not want to manage it themselves. The process is manageable when you know it. It is a significant time burden when you don't. You will not complete a single DETE form.
Transparent fees
CA Recruitment provides a fixed-fee quote for its recruitment fee during the initial consultation. The DETE permit fee and other government costs are payable upfront and billed to you at cost.
SME care worker tier — a gap no competitor fills
Protential Resources (the main agri/construction specialist in this space) does not place care workers. Agape Global places senior nursing staff only. CA Recruitment is the agency that places care assistants, healthcare support workers, and home support workers with Irish nursing homes, residential care facilities, and home care providers — from a single placement upwards. If you run a care facility and need overseas care staff, CA Recruitment is the only Irish-based agency with a dedicated Filipino sourcing pipeline for that tier.
Frequently asked questions
Managed overseas recruitment means an agency handles the full hiring process on your behalf — from sourcing and vetting candidates overseas through to DETE work permit applications, visa processing, and arrival support. You confirm the role and the candidate. CA Recruitment does everything else.
The full process typically takes 6 to 8 months from your first conversation to a worker's first day. The Labour Market Needs Test runs for 28 days. DETE processes General Employment Permit applications in approximately 8 to 12 weeks. The D-visa at the Irish Embassy in Manila takes a further 4 to 8 weeks. Starting earlier than you think you need to is the single best thing you can do — every week you delay before beginning the LMNT is a week added to the far end of the process.
The DETE permit application fee of €1,000 is payable before placement and paid to DETE directly at the point of application — not to CA Recruitment. CA Recruitment provides a fixed-fee quote for its own recruitment fee during the initial consultation, so you know the full cost before committing to anything.
Workers placed via an employment permit have relocated specifically for this role and this employer, so retention is consistently strong. If a placement runs into difficulty in the early weeks, contact us and we'll work through the options with you.
For most General Employment Permit roles, the minimum annual salary is €36,605. For healthcare support workers, home support workers, horticulture workers, and meat processors, a lower quota threshold applies: €16.12 per hour — €32,691 per year on a 39-hour week, or €33,529.60 on a 40-hour week. Salary thresholds are reviewed annually — always check enterprise.gov.ie for the current figure before starting the process.
No — not without a valid exemption. DETE requires that at least 50% of your total workforce are EEA nationals at the time the permit application is submitted. There are limited exemptions: a business with a single employee (sole employee situation), or a start-up less than two years old with a formal letter of support from Enterprise Ireland or IDA Ireland. No other exemptions apply. Monette checks this ratio during the free initial consultation — it is one of the first things to confirm before committing to the process.
Ready to hire? Message Monette on WhatsApp.
The first step is a free consultation — no fee, no obligation. Monette will confirm the permit route for your specific role, check your 50:50 ratio, and give you a clear timeline. Most conversations take around 20 minutes. From there, you decide whether to proceed — there is no commitment required to have that first conversation.
New to the permit process? Read our full work permit guide for Irish employers — it covers the General Employment Permit and Critical Skills route, the 50:50 rule, salary thresholds, and the full DETE application process step by step. Or if you specifically need care workers, see our guide to hiring overseas care assistants in Ireland.