Government lobbied to allow recruitment of dairy workers from India and Pakistan

Farmers struggling to find Irish or European workers who will milk cows for €500 a week

There are 17,000 dairy farmers in Ireland and milk production has increased by 67 per cent in the past decade due to the abolition of quotas. Picture: Getty

The government is being lobbied to allow dairy workers to be recruited from India, Pakistan and the Philippines to address the labour shortage in the sector.

In the past two years, around 150 workers from these countries were brought in to work on Irish dairy farms but no additional work permits have been permitted.

Dairy farmers are finding it difficult to recruit Irish or European workers, on salaries of around €500 per week, for the ...