Dublin fruit company Keelings has come under fire after it chartered a flight from Bulgaria carrying dozens of strawberry pickers during the COVID-19 lockdown.
The Ryanair flight arrived from the Bulgarian capital Sofia on Monday, April 13 carrying what the company say are "skilled horticultural staff".
Keelings released a statement confirming that the company had flown in the seasonal staff and that they would "not be asked to work without a full 14 days restricted movement".
The company added it was also recruiting local workers to pick crops on its farm along with other roles within the business.
The statement added: "It is essential that we have adequate staffing on the farm to pick crops quickly as they ripen, or we risk shortages in the market.
"The Keeling family is very proud of our amazing team of people in Keelings who are all working very hard and delivering on our responsibility to ensure there is a full supply of Fresh Fruit & Vegetables for everyone.
"Across our entire business we have also worked tirelessly to implement the HSE and Government guidelines to ensure we are protecting the health of all of our people.
"A very important part of our workforce for many years has been our skilled seasonal workers who return to us to help pick our fruit and manage our plant health.
"Without these seasonal workers it would be impossible to bring fresh Irish strawberries to the Irish market. We understand the concern in the current environment regarding both social distancing and local employment. We want to assure the public that we are doing all we can to help support local employment at this time and to ensure the safety of all our workers."
According to Dublin live many have said it is a "disgrace" that the workers were allowed to enter the country while lockdown restrictions aimed at stemming the spread of the deadly virus.
A Ryanair spokeswoman said: "This was a charter flight for a private company. Ryanair complied with all regulations set out by EASA and WHO on these special flights."
A Dublin Airport spokeswoman said: "The State’s health and travel policies in relation to COVID-19 are decided by the Irish Government and Dublin Airport has been complying fully with those guidelines since the start of the public health crisis.
Meanwhile special charter flights have also started flying into the UK from Bucharest with desperately needed workers for British farms that risk losing their crop of early summer fruit and vegetables.
Matthew Purton, the head of commercial aviation at Air Charter Services, said the company had tendered for six more flights “for a mixture of farms” in the coming weeks, which could see 450 workers flown in to help avert food shortages.
