Mr. Philip Carroll:

I thank Deputy Murnane O'Connor for her questions. I will answer some of them and I will ask my colleague, Mr. Cormac Healy, to answer others.

I will start with the question on whether mass testing is routine in plants.

There were approximately six plants with large clusters in April and May, when mass testing occurred. The process was to test all staff on-site, return only the staff who tested negative to the plant and continue in operation subsequently. At a later point, the individuals who had tested negative were also tested again, meaning there would have been a first round of overall testing and then a second test of people who had tested negative. This happened in approximately six sites but since that time there has been no mass testing protocol.

We welcome the Government announcement about serial testing. As I indicated in my opening statement, it is critical that there is an effective track and trace system with a very quick response time of between 12 and 24 hours for results. We need to have clear and unambiguous advance communication of how these protocols will operate. The Deputy asked about HSA inspections. As I stated at my previous appearance before the committee, we welcome and encourage unannounced inspections. We have absolutely no difficulty with that.

The Deputy asked about virus spread in plants and whether systems within plants would accelerate it. There is a hypothesis as to why large clusters of Covid-19 may have occurred in some meat plants and not in others. This is based on two assumptions, with the first being that a super-spreading event may have occurred within each of those plants in which large numbers of workers tested positive, and the second being that aerosol transmission of infection or dispersal of virus from an infected person over distances greater than 2 m could occur. We are in discussions-----