Mr. Michael Sheahan:

We tried as best we could to collaborate. One of the positives I take from this whole crisis has been the fantastic collaboration and co-operation between the Department, the Health and Safety Authority and the HSE, agencies with which, if we are honest, we normally do not have an awful lot of interaction. Similarly, we roped in some of our laboratory experts in the early stages. In the absence of other guidance, we got their help on producing guidance for our staff. We shared those documents with the meat factory management because it was in everyone's interest to try to collaborate and align our measures. In my experience, everybody has worked together on this, more so than in any other crisis we have had to deal with.