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Keelings found only 78 duly eligible workers out of the nearly 500 who responded to his call for local employees.
The Dublin fruit company announced job offers following a controversy over the use of Bulgarian workers.
They said they employ about 900 temporary workers to harvest during the April-October season.
Keelings has received more than 480 requests locally, but 192 did not respond when contacted.
Additionally, 215 failed the initial assessment for reasons including lack of transportation or access to Keelings bus service.
The company is hopeful that many of the remaining 78 will work for them in the near future.
On Monday, April 13, 189 seasonal workers flew on a charter flight from Sofia to Dublin to work with Keelings.
The company had said at the time: “They had all been examined for health before traveling to the Sofia airport, where officials checked their temperature before entry.
“After their arrival at the Dublin airport, they were taken directly to their homes by private bus, where according to HSE guidelines at the time, 14 days of restricted movement began.
“During this time, they were provided with groceries and essential items and paid for this period. They underwent further medical examinations immediately before starting work on April 29.”
The company had valuablely explained that in the past 20 years there has been less interest from the Irish in this work.
They said: “Most of our seasonal work has been done by experienced horticultural workers from other EU countries, often from Poland, Latvia and now from Bulgaria.
“This year we recruited in the usual way during the winter and started our job offers in late October 2019 to secure our Irish harvest.”
“In late March, to determine if we could save the crop with locally recruited employees, we announced in Ireland.
As of last April 16, we had attracted 27 domestic applications, which did not meet our job needs.
“Given the level of publicity over the past few weeks, we have had additional requests and other offers of help. We do not plan to recruit more horticultural workers from outside Ireland in the coming months.”
The government had said last month that seasonal workers are critical to the agricultural sector in terms of harvest, sow and care functions, especially in the current season and that anyone arriving from outside Ireland must comply with the Department’s guidelines. of Health regarding the requirements of Covid-19 and restrict movements for 14 days.
They then launched a national recruiting campaign aiming to recruit large numbers of temporary workers to the horticulture sector of the live registry within Ireland.
They said: “This campaign will be scheduled for the fruit harvest to peak in mid-May and mid-June and the vegetable harvest from mid-June.”
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