29th October 2026 |
Notice
The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment is informing users that it has identified suspicious unauthorised activity on the Employment Permits Portal.
As part of our preliminary investigations, a security vulnerability was identified. As a precautionary measure, the Portal has been taken offline to protect our users and systems while further investigations and security checks are carried out.
Work is ongoing to restore the Portal as soon as the necessary security measures have been implemented and independently verified.
The Portal is currently expected to re-open on Tuesday, 3 November.
We sincerely apologise for any concern caused by this incident and wish to thank our users for their understanding and co-operation while this matter continues to be addressed.
What information may have been affected?
While our investigations are at an early stage, information potentially exposed includes basic user account information, such as:
- name;
- email addresses; and
- user account roles (for example employer; agent or employee).
From our preliminary investigations, broader and more sensitive personal data categories have not been affected.
We are continuing to investigate the incident with our technology partners and independent cybersecurity specialists.
What should Employment Permits Portal users do?
As a precaution, users are advised to take the following steps to protect their personal data.
We recommend that users:
- Be alert to suspicious communications, including unexpected emails, text messages or telephone calls referring to employment permits, portal accounts, applications or payments.
- Do not click on suspicious links or open unexpected attachments, and verify unexpected requests using established official contact details.
- Never disclose passwords or other personal data in response to unsolicited requests.
- Exercise caution with requests for personal, business or financial information, including requests for identity documents or additional information about an employment permit application.
Users should be particularly alert to communications that appear to come from the Department or refer to this incident.
It is important to remember that the Department will never ask users to disclose their personal data by email or text message.
What has the Department done?
We have taken a number of measures in response to the incident, including:
- suspended new registrations and subsequently taken the portal offline as a precaution;
- restricted access to the administration environment and removed access from suspected compromised administrator accounts;
- implemented additional firewall restrictions to limit access to administrative systems;
- engaged independent cybersecurity specialists to support the forensic investigation and assess the potential scope and impact of the incident; and
- commenced a formal incident response process, including engagement with the Department's Data Protection Officer (DPO).
We have also submitted an initial notification to the Data Protection Commission.
How will this affect applications for Employment Permits?
Internal permit processing by our Employment Permits team will continue and is not impacted.
Customers will still receive updates on decisions reached on their permit application.
Applications saved in draft, applications awaiting fee payment and other information held on the system will remain available when the portal returns to service, including applications that may exceed the normal 28-day submission period during the outage. Appropriate flexibility in the assessment of such cases will apply.
Appropriate flexibility will also be applied in respect of renewal applications and Labour Market Needs Test advertising requirements that may be affected by this outage period.
Contact
If you have questions about this incident, please contact us at: dataqueries.permits@enterprise.gov.ie
For urgent employment permit queries, please contact us at: epos@enterprise.gov.ie
For data protection queries, you can contact our Data Protection Officer at: dataprotection@enterprise.gov.ie
Updates
Any further updates will be posted on the Department’s website and on the Employment Permits Portal.
Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment
Published 29 October 2026.