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

The meat industry proves the point the MRCI is making that where there is discrimination and different sets of rules for migrant workers, it serves to undermine working conditions and wage rates for all workers. Covid is a good illustration.

It has, unfortunately, shone a light on some of the conditions that exist in our meat plants and that is worth looking at further.

I have an overarching question for MII. The rates of Covid in our meat plants are striking. There are 25 open outbreaks at the moment out of 56 meat plants in the State. At times in the past couple of months, the incidences have been higher and more than 50% of meat plants have had open outbreaks. SIPTU has said that 25% of meat plant workers have got Covid-19 at some point in the past year or so, which is also striking. There are, obviously, environmental factors because of the nature of meat plants as workplaces and issues around ventilation and so on but there is strong evidence to suggest that is compounded by poor working conditions which include issues around no sick pay, agency staff, tied accommodation and poor accommodation that is shared by workers. Does MII accept that poor working conditions are a compounding factor in the levels of Covid that we have seen in our meat plants?