James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman. I will be as brief as I can.

It will not come as a surprise to the representatives of the meat industry who are here today that the three counties lay the blame at its door. The three counties have been locked down for what is seen as lax regulation and practices in the meat plant sector. A number of damning stories have been put out in recent days and weeks and I ask them to briefly respond do those. I refer to conditions for workers, perhaps outside the workplace, such as accommodation and transport to work. Were and are they aware of different arrangements? How did workers travel to work? Did they travel in private cars? Were they bused into work? Was that arranged by the employer? How did they get there?

As a final question, are the witnesses aware of workers in the infected plants in the lockdown areas getting accommodation outside of the lockdown areas? That would be very interesting. I refer to workers travelling from a plant a locked down county, where there have been outbreaks, to accommodation outside of that locked down area? Mr. Healy might confirm, "Yes" or "No" as to whether that is happening.