Mr. Philip Carroll:

The first thing and the main thing that has concerned us from the beginning is the fact of having cases at all. We have been concerned about the people who work in plants, wherever they come from, be it Ireland, Europe or other countries. We have been concerned only with the fact of them having the virus and how we mitigate that.

A sweeping statement has been made by the Deputy that we have stonewalled and have not answered any questions here. That is completely unfair because have answered about 75 questions and we have answered them all within the knowledge that we have of the circumstances of Covid outbreaks in meat plants. The Deputy has thrown out a few issues we could not possibly have anticipated when he talks about particular circumstances - I suspect he refers to a particular circumstance - where he has discovered multiple people living in a house. Interestingly enough, if he was listening this morning the MRCI spoke of research they had done. That research was around a tiny, almost infinitesimal, proportion of workers in the industry but they made a point on housing that the Deputy might want to hear - they had no evidence from those they researched that people live with coworkers. That was generally the position they adopted. We have made it very clear that workers choose where they want to live. We are mandated by the permit system to ensure that accommodation is available but there is no requirement that workers have to live in that accommodation.