Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 13 August 2020

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response

Covid-19: The Situation in Meat Processing Plants

Mr. Greg Ennis:

If I may assist the Deputy on that, I believe the number of agencies is somewhere in the region of seven or eight. Just less than 30% of the workers would be agency workers. My colleague mentioned the scope section, which in this case needs support and to be beefed up because, having dealt with it some years ago, and I do not think it has changed much in the past three or four years, I believe it does not have the resources to carry out the inspections that are necessary. That is the reason we need a holistic view of what is happening in the meat industry with all stakeholders. I reiterate the request that I made in May to the then Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to set that up. Four months later, we have another 500 Covid-19 cases and we have lockdowns in regions. This Government needs to get real and deploy everything it has in its arsenal in order to deal with this pandemic.

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