Irish Examiner View: Picking strawberry crop is not essential

The decision by Keelings decision to bring workers to Ireland this week has drawn criticism online

Long before this pandemic struck it was obvious that business and society, though dependent on each other, often march to a different drum.

Construction industry pleading to continue as normal despite dangerous on-site practices was one.

The bully-boy attitude of airlines or insurance companies, whose idea of customer service is to grind dissatisfied customers to exhaustion so they might go away, is another.

This week we had another example of how priorities differ when almost 200 people arrived in Dublin airport to pick fruit for Keelings, a company with a turnover of €330m and 2,000 employees.

At a moment when so many businesses have closed, when so many jobs are in real jeopardy this was an affront to social solidarity.

In these situations it is often suggested that Irish people will not do the work but that hardly holds water as tens of thousands work for the minimum wage of €10.10 an hour.

Some other dynamic may be in play. Unfortunately, and wrongly, this opens the blameless migrants to criticism.

Though Keelings insist that pandemic protocols will be observed Minister for Health Simon Harris’ suggestion yesterday that there may be a need for “more stringent” checks at airports better reflects the national mood and need — especially as saving a crop of strawberries is not by any stretch of the imagination essential.

This profit-driven practice must, unfortunately, be suspended until coronavirus passes.