Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As someone in the community looking at this, the question needs to be answered. If it is an ongoing trend, it suggests that a possibly large number of people in the meat trade are not susceptible to the symptoms of Covid but are carrying the disease. We should note that. If it has been resolved, we can put it down to perhaps a testing blip that happened early on. We should arrive at an understanding. It seems bizarre that a particularly industry or sector could be a complete outlier when it comes to community testing. The committee should look into that.

With respect to Meat Industry Ireland, could I ask about the proposed 24-hour turnaround time for tests? Has Meat Industry Ireland been told that this is achievable in the numbers that will be required? Have the issues relating to GDPR that have arisen at this committee before been resolved? We heard about the pre-eminence of people's right to their data. Will this preclude factories from being contacted about positive cases?