Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I support the Bill. Workplace infections are a driving factor in Covid, but that has been hidden by the inadequacies of our testing and tracing regime. If one looked at current Covid hotspots geographically, one would find that they map fairly well onto geographical centres with meat plants. There is a more general point to be made, though. According to traffic data, it looks like twice as many people travel to work now as did during the first lockdown. It is the main reason people are leaving their houses and interacting with others, thereby getting and spreading the virus. The Government has been at pains to underplay this element. At some stage, the Tánaiste told our committee - he later retracted this - that people were safer at work than they were at home, the idea being that the virus somehow generated by itself at home.

I have a few questions for Dr. McGuinness. If I am a worker and I consider that my employer is not essential but is open nonetheless, can the HSA do anything for me in terms of getting the employer shut down?