Mr. Philip Carroll:

Thank you, Chairman, for inviting Meat Industry Ireland to engage with the Special Committee on the Covid-19 Response once again. I am accompanied today by Mr. Cormac Healy and Mr. Joe Ryan.

When we last engaged with the committee, there had been some 22 clusters at primary processing plants. As we have seen this week, a single primary processing site is unfortunately experiencing its first Covid-19 outbreak. The original 22 clusters are no longer active clusters and 99% of affected staff have, thankfully, recovered and returned to work. In the two-month period until 4 August, across all our members’ sites, just five additional cases had emerged. Disappointingly, that situation altered last week. However, it is important to reiterate that the majority of primary processing sites have had zero or very low numbers of positives.

In the period since early June we have seen the strong impact of stringent controls and mitigation measures that were put in place early in the pandemic and were strengthened on 15 May with the publication of HSE protocols. The rigid enforcement of these measures, verified by Government agencies through announced and unannounced audits, has served to reverse the trend of positive cases and restored the overall sector to relative stability.

The meat sector was designated by Government as an essential service because it performed services that were deemed necessary for society. As such, the sector continued to operate while most other non-essential manufacturing sectors were closed. As a labour-intensive industry, where large groups of workers congregate, the workplace environment was transformed fundamentally to meet complementary objectives: keeping people safe while maintaining business continuity. We introduced a rapid response in rolling out a comprehensive set of protocols across all sites that, over time and with the benefit of expert advice, enabled us reach the position of stability that has prevailed in recent months in all sites.

As we know, Covid-19 travels through communities into industrial settings. As occupational settings are locations where large numbers of people congregate, they provide the potential for the virus to spread, reflecting the dynamic between community and workplace. As the pandemic accelerated across society, the HSE identified that many of the positive cases that emerged in meat plants were asymptomatic and were detected as part of wider HSE screening tests.

This process identified clusters where the vast majority of the positive cases were asymptomatic, a finding which reinforced the insidious and indiscriminate nature of the virus and the challenges associated with identifying potential cases.

In this latest outbreak, there has been a rush to blame and to complain that nothing has been done to mitigate and prevent the virus spread in this industrial setting. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kildare Chilling survived the high points of late April and early May, recording no virus cases when other clusters formed. No simple conclusion can therefore be drawn from what has now emerged.

As we now move toward a new approach to Covid-19 testing, we remain fully committed to public health guidelines, including the additional screening proposals that Government announced in recent days. However, these can only work to keep people safe while maintaining business continuity if the following steps are put in place: clear and unambiguous advance communication of the screening test protocols to ensure that everyone involved understands the procedures and follow up actions; a speedy and efficient sampling system, with test results returned within 24 hours of the sample being taken; and an effective track and trace system into which MII member companies will continue to record and transmit appropriate information to facilitate contact tracing by the HSE.

In conclusion, I assure the committee that our industry has worked diligently to protect employees throughout the course of this pandemic and continues to do so. It took very extensive measures early in the crisis to protect workers and to ensure business continuity. It continues to update and enhance its protocols in line with all relevant public health guidance. Vigilance remains the priority. Our members are proud of their committed workforce and we commend them and all those in the extended supply chain on their efforts during these very difficult times.