Mr. Michael Sheahan:

I thank the Chairman. I am the deputy director of veterinary services in the Department of Agriculture and the Marine and I am joined by my colleague, Ms Maria Dunne, who is the head of one of our policy division dealing with the meat and dairy sector. I have a very brief opening statement after which I will assist the committee in whatever way I can.

The Government, as everyone is aware, categorised farming and food production as essential services under the Covid-19 regulations. Irish food supply chains have continued to operate effectively to ensure continuity and security of supply of safe, healthy Irish food for consumers at home and abroad.

A total of 149 meat premises are approved by the Department, with specific approvals for activities, including slaughtering, deboning, cold storage, etc., in the different sectors of cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry and so on. Of these, 149 plants, the Department has a so-called permanent presence in 49 premises where slaughter of animals takes place. In the other 100 or so premises, the Department does not have a permanent presence, but carries out risk-based inspections and controls as appropriate.

The Department's statutory responsibility in the context of meat plants is to ensure that Department-approved meat plants operate in compliance with the EU food hygiene legislation, animal health legislation and with animal welfare standards. Approximately 250 veterinary and technical staff from the Department are routinely involved in supervising, regulating and controlling standards at these 149 meat premises. I should say that this presence is supplemented by contractors and private veterinary practitioners who also provide a meat inspection service within those meat plants, in addition to the Department's permanent staff.

In the context of the pandemic, as the committee will be aware, primary responsibility for public health policy and implementation rests with the Department of Health, the HSE and general statutory responsibility for health and safety in the workplace rests with the Health and Safety Authority under the auspices of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

However, as part of the whole-of-Government response to the pandemic, in addition to our statutory role in food safety, animal welfare and animal health, the Department has and will continue to provide any support required to the HSE and the HSA at local and national levels. So far some of that support provided by our Department has included participation in and contribution to the HSE-chaired National Outbreak Control Team. This National Outbreak Control Team, NOCT, as the committee will be aware, was set up to deal with Covid-19 outbreaks in meat plants in Ireland. It is chaired by the HSE and was established in May.

It issued detailed guidance to meat plants on 15 May, including about infection prevention and control measures. An updated version of this guidance document was issued on 30 June. This was the first such guidance document that was issued by any country in the EU. It is an excellent document, and we can talk about that later if necessary. We disseminated this document to all Department-approved plants on behalf of the HSE on 15 May. We have since supported the HSE and the HSA in monitoring the effective implementation of all relevant guidance in our Department-approved plants. This includes the document I have just referred to, the national outbreak control team guidance, as well as the return to work safely protocol.

The support of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for the work of the HSA was formalised through a memorandum of understanding agreed between the Department and the authority. We commenced inspections on behalf of the HSA in the week commencing 20 July in meat plants and other food premises, including dairy plants and other plants in respect of which we have a role. To date, we have completed 91 such inspections and these inspections are ongoing. To be clear, these inspections are in plants in addition to the 49 places in which we have a permanent presence. We expect to have completed the majority of our inspections by the end of next week, Friday, 21 August. To date, our inspections have shown a high level of compliance.

Since the start of the pandemic, regular meetings have taken place with meat industry representatives, at which it has been emphasised that their priority must be safeguarding human health and following HSE guidance at all levels of operation. The first of these meetings took place on 11 March and they have continued weekly and fortnightly since then. Looking back at the period since 11 March, I would say that there has not been a day-----