Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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251. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans to implement recommendations from the report People in Dairy Action Plan to address labour issues in the dairy sector. [28631/18]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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At a meeting of the Food Wise 2025 High Level Implementation Committee (HLIC) last October, I asked Tom Moran, former Secretary General of my Department, to establish a multi-stakeholder industry group to consider in detail the range of labour issues facing the dairy sector and to prepare a report and recommendations on how they can be addressed. The 22 person group worked diligently over the subsequent months and I was delighted to publish their final report, ‘The People in Dairy Action Plan’, last week.

The Plan contains a total of 29 specific actions which are grouped into six broad areas:

- measures to ensure adequate availability of skilled farm operatives both seasonally and throughout the year (5 actions),

- improving the labour efficiency of farms (4 actions),

- developing dairy farmers into employers with good HR skills (4 actions),

- new training and ongoing CPD for dairy farmers and employees (6 actions),

- providing career progression pathways (5 actions),

- promoting dairy farming as an attractive career (5 actions)

The Chairman of the group has emphasised that these six areas are all inter-linked and cannot be taken in isolation.

The success of the Action Plan will be in its implementation and I welcome the fact that it contains a chapter dedicated to this aspect, which sets out three specific actions:

- The appointment of a programme manager

- The establishment of a stakeholder advisory group

- Consideration and development of funding mechanisms.

For each of the 29 actions, lead and support organisations are identified, as well as timelines. I have asked the Chairman to report back to the HLIC periodically so that implementation of the Plan can be monitored.