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When the Government deemed agricultural workers to be essential workers, An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that it “hadn’t envisioned hundreds of agricultural workers coming in from outside the country”.
“Agricultural workers are deemed essential workers because we do have to bring in the harvest in order to ensure we have enough food to eat so I think people understand why they are essential workers.
“Although I have to say when we deemed agricultural workers to be essential workers, I hadn’t envisioned hundreds of agricultural workers coming in from outside the country,” he said on Monday.
Work with the sector
“So what I think what we are going to try and do now is to work with the sector to see if we can find an adequate number of Irish people or people resident in Ireland at the very least who will take up those positions.
“If not, then we have to make a decision – do we allow the crop to fail, which isn’t a good thing, or do we allow workers to continue to come in from other parts of the European Union but with very defined and monitored quarantine arrangements to make sure that they don’t create a new cluster of the virus,” he said.
Keelings
On Friday, Keelings defended its decision to fly 189 workers from Europe to help pick fruit during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It said it was essential to have adequate staffing on the farm to pick crops as they ripened or they risked market shortages.
While the Taoiseach might say that he had not "envisioned" hundreds of seasonal workers arriving into Ireland, the Department of Business had already issued 500 permits to the horticulture industry for non-EEA workers before the pandemic and the Keelings controversy.
Employers would have to pay €1,000 for each permit and the sector had to demonstrate that it had attempted to recruit locally before permits were awarded by the Department.
Europe
Historically, local seasonal workers have been difficult to source nationally in wealthier European countries where citizens do not seem keen on the long hours and seasonal nature of the work.
Across Europe, citizens and farmers are clashing over the need for seasonal workers. The German government was forced to do a U-turn on a ban on seasonal workers at the start of April to allow up to 80,000 into the country. However, Germans are now voicing concerns over the influx of workers from Romania.
In the UK, despite a massive surge of up to 36,000 volunteers for the 'land army' to help with the harvest, just 6,000 people have opted for an interview, with more falling away due to the seasonal aspect of the work with the expectation that their own jobs will resume once lockdown restrictions ease.
It leaves many farmers in a catch-22 position where they need to harvest food as it ripens, but seasonal workers aren't available.
Keelings stated last Friday that it had attempted to recruit locally, but had just 40 applications to date, including 13 applications that day as the controversy continued.
Additional reporting by Hannah Quinn-Mulligan.
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