Mr. Cormac Healy:

I do not accept that. Many people want to play a blame game or condemn what has happened. I reiterate that a huge amount of work has gone into this on the part of Meat Industry Ireland and the members it represents, which are the primary processing companies. Back in April and May there were some 22 clusters, six of them large, and following continued work on stringent protocols and controls it resulted in a situation in June and July whereby there were only five cases reported. Unfortunately, we now have one plant that has had an outbreak. Not all the information is known about that, but the plant had gone through the entire period of the pandemic, since the middle of March, without a single case. We continue to work on that. I do not accept what many might say because a huge amount of work is going on and will continue to go on. In that situation, of the four plants that were mentioned that are affected by the current lockdown in the three counties, one relates to Meat Industry Ireland.

I do not accept what has been said. We continue to work on the situation. It does not start in the meat plant; it comes into it. There is a whole interplay between the workplace and the community. We have to keep fighting. As I said before the committee previously, the best way for any plant to mitigate is to try to keep it out. Systems are in place such as screening and temperature checking, among others, and now we are about to enter into a serialised testing regime that the public health authorities feel is the way to go.

We will comply fully with that and see what it shows. There is no question but that a major effort has been made, as well as investment, and we will continue with it. Covid-19 is not all about meat plants or the meat industry.