Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to make two points. First, can I take it from Mr. Healy's response that Meat Industry Ireland is open to meeting with SIPTU and other trade union representative? If it is, I encourage it to do that as a matter of priority. Second, returning to the HSA inspections, a phenomenal revelation today was that there was not a single unannounced inspection by the HSA. We know it was late in carrying out those inspections.

A recent headline on agriland.iereads: "HSA to begin 200-farm inspection ‘blitz’ from Monday". That shows the double standards that apply on these matters. The HSA was incredibly slow to carry out inspections of meat factories and has not actually carried out any unannounced inspections to date. I ask the witnesses and this committee to liaise with the HSA to get clarification as to why that is the case because it is not acceptable.