Mr. Greg Ennis:

SIPTU has not received information from the public health bodies beyond what we are following from NPHET and so on. The Deputy asked why the infection recurred. At the end of June or in early July, we had 1,115 cases. We now have 1,450 and rising. The recurrence is because our guard was relaxed. We need more focused inspections. That and speedy results from testing are the two key weapons the meat industry has.

It is a scary thought, given that meat will always be an essential foodstuff, but as we reopen our economy further, we will unfortunately see more cases if we do not act inside and outside the workplace and deal with the vectors of no sick pay, workers living in terrible conditions and so on. In my written submission, members will see a link to an interview that I did with one of the media outlets where this was predicted. We do not always get things right. Unfortunately, we were right in this case and I have grave fears as we move into autumn and winter with the seasonal influenza that will probably come and employments reopening as they should.

We can get this right, but we must throw everything at it. We need Covid compliance officers. We need to ensure that inspections are unannounced and are happening in a saturated way across meat plants in the areas the Deputy represents.