IFA wants a permit free-up to attract more non-EU dairy operatives

THE IFA are to step up their efforts to clear the way for more non-EU skilled dairy operatives to be allowed to take up employment on Irish farms over the coming months.

With the Irish labour market now being rated as almost at ‘actual full employment’ (just 4.6% unemployed in April, 2019), dairy farmers in the West of Ireland, and across the country, are finding it increasingly hard to source workers.

A pilot scheme introduced over the past year or so – while slow to start – is now over-subscribed with 49 out of 50 work permits allocated and there aremore applicants still in the system.

“Access to potentially skilled employees from outside of the EU cannot be closed off when our current national labour market is at full employment,” said IFA National Dairy Chairman, Tom Phelan.

The IFA has now proposed a series of measures to ease the current shortage in the labour market, including the provision of more flexible labour permits including repeatable seasonal permits.

Tom Phelan said that an example of this would be New Zealand dairy operatives who would come here for the ‘Irish Spring’ and then return home in our Autumn period for the Antipodean Spring.

Galway IFA Dairy Representative, Noel Murphy, said that while in a West of Ireland context, most dairy farmers operated on a one labour unit basis, there was an ongoing need for relief milkers to help take the seven-day drudgery out of the job.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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