Ms Bríd McKeown:

Over the past ten days, we spoke to a range of workers from seven or eight counties across Ireland. The majority were male with 29% being female. More than 60% of these workers said they were on €11.50 or less per hour, with four people saying they were on less than €10.10, two of whom are EU nationals. Some 15% of those interviewed said that they do not have a contract and a further 9% said they were not sure whether they have a contract. Some 13% said that their contracts do not reflect their current terms and conditions. Almost a quarter of workers said that they are not paid overtime for working extra hours. Shockingly, 90% of respondents said that their employers do not provide a sick pay scheme, which is crucial to the Covid response.

With regard to health and safety, almost 60% of workers said that they have been injured in the workplace. The majority of injuries were regular lacerations, bruises, repetitive strain from years in the same role and back pain. They claim these injuries are caused by lack of protective measures or equipment, no training or limited training on health and safety and faulty tools or machinery, with almost a fifth of workers citing injury as an expected occupational hazard. Some 23% of these injuries went unreported and more than 60% of workers said they did not even know who the health and safety officer in their workplace was.

We also asked workers if they felt valued in the workplace and 85% of our respondents said they do not. Some 70% said they felt they had been bullied in some way and, of those who felt they have been bullied, a fifth felt too afraid to raise their concerns. Three fifths of the workers we spoke to felt they have been discriminated against, mainly on the grounds of nationality or race.

To put all of this in the context of the Covid response, according to workers, there is an extremely mixed picture as to when protections were put in place. This ranged from an immediate response when lockdown occurred right up to five weeks or more before measures were put in place in the workplace. Some 43% of respondents said that, even where these measures were in place, they felt their employers were not enforcing them sufficiently. In those workplaces where there were clusters, just 30% of workers felt their employers took effective action to keep them safe, with 67% claiming their employer had not done enough to prioritise their safety. Some 40% of workers we interviewed still do not feel safe in their working environment.

With regard to housing, there are very limited data available. Our data, however, showed that 70% of the workers we interviewed do not live with co-workers but in a range of rented and family-owned accommodation.

Of the 28% of workers who live with co-workers, they live with three or fewer co-workers. Just three of the people we interviewed said they shared a room with a co-worker.

Regarding the response from employers, MRCI began to receive complaints on 26 March. Workers were worried, frightened and angry about the conditions they were being forced to work in and could foresee that, without appropriate health and safety measures, their families and health would be at risk. MRCI supported workers in raising their concerns with their employers. As we continued to receive ongoing complaints into May, however, it became clear that many factories were extremely slow to put adequate health and safety measures in place.

The meat sector is highly regulated in terms of meat production and food safety, but the same attitude and approach is not afforded the working conditions of the industry's staff. It seems that the State has allowed the industry to regulate itself, which we deem a questionable approach, given the history that we have outlined to the committee and the lack of value assigned to workers. To date, only one factory has closed to deal with the outbreak.