The IFA has made a submission to the Department of Agriculture calling for an additional 200 dairy work permits as part of the current pilot scheme.Under the scheme, farmers had access to 50 permits for dairy assistants from outside the EU. Forty-nine of those have been filled, with additional applications still waiting for approval. “There are farmers in the queue waiting for permits and we don’t want them to lose their place and have to reapply to another scheme. We would like the permits to be available as soon as possible,” Catherine Lascurettes, executive secretary of the IFA dairy committee, said.