Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I have had a good engagement with the HSA and the Workplace Relations Commission on meat plants to find out how many complaints were made, how many inspections were carried out and what the outcome of those inspections was. By and large, the outcome of the inspections has been that businesses, including meat plants, have been broadly compliant. The impression may exist that all or most meat plants were flagrantly violating all of the regulations but that would not be a fair characterisation based on what the HSA and the Workplace Relations Commission are saying to me. There are 2.3 million people at work in Ireland across tens of thousands of businesses. Clearly, there are not enough inspections and there should be more. If the Deputy is asking whether we need to resource those bodies better so they can take on more staff to carry out more inspections to ensure the laws we passed are actually enforced, the answer to that question is "Yes".