Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to come in on that issue. We are all familiar with the situation in Bandon, where 67 people were diagnosed last week. The big issue is the lack of information that was given to the community. Obviously the plant has issues, as it is only working at a certain level of capacity at the moment. For the town of Bandon and the surrounding area to have so many people, unfortunately, tied down with Covid, and I have not taken into consideration close contacts, it had a big bearing in what happened there in the past ten days. That kind of information is key. Other Deputies have mentioned the need to convey information to communities, which is very important. Leaving it up to the meat plants to decide to inform communities about what is happening is not good enough. The community of Bandon only heard that nearly 70 workers at a local plant were diagnosed as having Covid last week through a leak to the media. We need to work on protocols because they are not there at the moment and it is literally left to how one particular plant or organisation wants to deal with the matter. Without a shadow of a doubt some places are better than others but some just close up shop and say they have nothing to report as Covid is not an issue. We need to have some direction in order that information is given to communities in the event of an outbreak .