Ms Edel McGinley:

We have outlined some of the solutions. They include unannounced inspections from the HSA. We need better data, both from the HSA and, as the last speaker suggested, in terms of where the clusters are. We need a focus on those areas and those industries. We need some kind of sectoral agreement for this area. That is difficult given that we do not have proper collective bargaining legislation in this State. That issue also needs to be looked at and addressed by the current Government. We would like to see more of a focus on a sectoral or task-force approach that would bring together employer bodies, the State and unions to look at this area and to scrutinise the State funds going into this industry when such low wages are given to workers.

It is not in the committee's gift to give workers a bonus or higher pay but it may be in its gift to ask Meat Industry Ireland what its intentions are in that regard and if it will propose something to reward its workers for coming to work every day in hazardous conditions and to give people a bonus for the recent period. That may be a gift the committee can give workers.

We need better data and we need the HSA to be more transparent in how it does its work and in its findings. Not everything is reported on and I understand the reasons for the approach it takes. There could be a whistleblower who reports and the individual is not identified, and that is important. However, there is a public interest element that is not being served and the HSA needs to look, in the public interest, at the terms on which it was set up and at what its role and remit is.