Labour and Home affairs Minister Terry Lister has called for a cap on work permits.

He wants summer summit meetings on immigration to ensure the Island doesn't become too overcrowded.

He said: "That is a collective decision. We do have to have that conversation. We have to approach it in a multipronged point of view meaning the private sector, the public sector, the social partners, all of these.

"We need to put together some forums to come up with the answer where we say what is sustainable development for Bermuda.

"How much should be under concrete? How much should be plain old grass? Those sorts of decisions have to be made.

"I don't think the Minister of Labour should be making the decision in regard to work permits.

"I don't think the Minister of Environment should be making the decision about building permits. It's all of us, public and private, sitting down and working out where we need to be."

Describing it as a keen issue he said: "It's something we should be looking at in the summer. I don't see it happening before then."

Chief Immigration Officer Dr. Martin Brewer said there were 7,500 to 8,000 work permit holders currently on the Island.

Mr. Lister said he regularly talked to the Minister of Tourism about development of new hotels to make sure they benefited the Island as a whole, not just tourism.

"Every time a job is created in Bermuda of any type I have to issue a work permit. Because if every Bermudian who wants a job is working you have to create a work permit."

He said when Daniel's Head was built, the owners promised the Minister of Tourism it would only require three work permits out of the 48 jobs created, but as Bermudians moved from other hotels more vacancies were created which ended up being filled with guest workers.

"It's a balance we have to consider."

He said the UBP's Grant Gibbons was saying the Opposition wanted to stimulate business to get more companies into Bermuda.

"For an overdeveloped country with 22 percent of its workforce from overseas that's a goal that should be way down the list."

And Mr. Lister defended his call for more blacks to be given work permits.

Mr. Lister said: "Who should determine the mix of people to live in Bermuda? Right now it's the employer."

As an example, he said every country in the world which had cars had competent mechanics who would be tempted by Bermuda's high wages, which would be better than 99 percent of the countries in the world.

"It's currently up to the employer to say this is the country I choose to go to, to bring people to Bermuda. I have a big question mark over that."

He said he was constantly questioned about why so many people from certain countries were coming.

"It's a xenophobia sort of thing. As a country being xenophobic, it's not a good thing but promoting things which are going to stress people and push them into thinking along those lines isn't good either.

"So when I asked the business community to bringing people here who are black it was to say we have a community who for the last 150 years was made up of blacks, whites and Portuguese.

"So lets continue along those lines. You need to go abroad to get people get people from the areas where historically they have come from so they look to integrate in and assimilate a lot easier."

Asked where employers should go he said: "They can go to the States, they can go to Canada, England, the Caribbean."

Asked if that was already happening Mr. Lister said: "Well, but you know we are also getting people from lots of other parts of the world where people are available. Let's just put it that way.

"It's the employer who makes the decisions. That's bottom line. They feel it's their right to. I am not sure it's the case."

Mr. Lister said the Caribbean has some outstanding hotels with some excellent staff. "I don't think there is an island in the Caribbean which doesn't have two hotels which aren't better than our best hotels."

He said he'd stayed in St. Lucia and seen trained, friendly staff playing chess and tennis with visitors and making them feel good about their stay.

"Why can't we steal those people away? Who understand and appreciate and promote service.

"Let's bring a bunch of these people up here and stick them in a hotel. Not to displace Bermudians but to take jobs being held by foreign born workers now."

Mr. Lister also defended the right of boards such as the dental board to have an input on immigration matters.

Mr. Lister said: "Everybody has a say with us." He said foreign photographers had to be approved by the photographers' association.

"It's not so much of a closed shop. For every single job category in Bermuda we should be inviting people in because there aren't enough Bermudians in that line of work.

"That's how it should be, taxi drivers, fisherman and retail sales clerks are closed categories because we believe we can find Bermudians to do these jobs.

"The dentists need to be open and honest about this, they say Mr. Smith can't find a dentist for four months.

"I have a very competent dentist who has done everything including root canals and I don't have a problem getting an appointment.

"Is it dentists you can't see or a particular dentist? If you can't get any dentist then we need more dentists. But we are not there. What I have said since I have been here is what is the norm elsewhere?"

Referring to ear, nose and throat specialist Dr. Jonathan Murray, whose work permit removal caused a storm of controversy he said; "I was told in the States they had one ENT specialist per 100,000, in the UK its one per 80,000 and here we are with four people with 60,000.

"In ENT they should be working pretty steady, not run of their feet so when you see its four it's obviously too many. Three are Bermudians."

He said private sector help in the immigration department was working fantastically, as could be seen by the lack of controversy as people sought Permanent Residents Certificates (PRCs) and status.

He said: "To our surprise the numbers that have come in are not as great as they could have been.

"Status grants will total just over a thousand, at the end of December we had about 250 in. PRCs will total, I think, about 1,400, but its based on being here for 20 years, and people qualify up to 2008.

"There are people who qualify for it who can't make an application for another five years."

He said around 7-800 people had already applied. He said the numbers applying for British passports were also lower than expected.

"We thought we'd get as many as 10,000 applications, but we are on 1,200 to 1,500. We are mostly turning them around within two weeks. We had told the public when we started it would be eight weeks."

He said he had no statistics on work permit turn around times but said the backlog had been reduced with senior staffing gaps at Immigration had been filled with top level people.

He said there had been a huge demand when new reinsurance companies poured into the island after September 11. They brought new workers while other switched from firms already on the island.

In 2001, Government brought in work permit limits of six years. "It would be my hope that everyone who comes after April 1, 2007 stays the six years.

"That might surprise some people when I say that. But there is a turn over effect which is not acceptable within business.

"So six years of having that person on the payroll, even if they change positions in the company, is healthy."

He said Dale Butler was right when he said few Bermudians applied for jobs. He said: "We have an economy that outstrips the number of Bermudians.

"One would hope 100 years from now we have the same size economy. We have an economy which generates 34,000 jobs, we don't want an economy which generates 26,000 jobs.

"It won't mean of the foreigners will go, it will mean the Bermudians will be out of work."

He gave the example of a car firm employing Bermudian staff selling cars to foreigners. He said: "If the expats disappeared tomorrow the number of salesmen selling cars would reduce. It doesn't take a lot to figure it out."

He said the National Training Board's goal was to train Bermudians to achieve their career goals.

"There will still be 8,000 work permits. There will still be tons of people who are guest workers but the Bermudians will have pushed themselves to their limits."