Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have been watching the handling of the Covid-19 infections within the meat industry over the last number of weeks. It gives me no pleasure to say that I am very seriously concerned by the manner in which this particular infection is being managed. I have a genuine fear that if the reopening of the economy continues next week, we could be looking at the resurgence of this virus. We have a serious problem within our meat plants, which should come as no surprise because this is a global problem that has sadly been replicated here in Ireland. Our response to this can at best be described as lethargic. There are now clusters of infection surrounding meat plants where the levels of infection within the plants themselves is up to one third or in some instances half of the workforce. This seriously brings into question the Covid protection measures implemented in these plants. Despite this, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine assured me here in the Dáil just two weeks ago that he was satisfied from the feedback from his officials in the meat plants that everything was being done to minimise the spread of this infection. What surprises me is that even though we had a problem in nursing homes because of delayed actions, the same was allowed to happen within our meat industry. Why did it take six weeks after the first infections in plants for screening of all staff to take place?

Why has it taken up to two weeks to return test results to some meat plant employees if there was no backlog with testing? Why were staff not instructed to self-isolate in the interim while awaiting those test results? Instead they returned to work the very next day into meat plants where public health doctors were concerned enough about the scale of infection to order testing of every employee. Because of this failure to self-isolate staff members who potentially showed no sign of infection, they could have been spreading the infection asymptomatically. This has resulted in a situation where the negative results issued to employees are worthless, as they could have become infected in the interim period by employees who were asymptomatically positive while awaiting test results. We have serious lessons to learn from the manner in which testing and the delivery of results have taken place in the meat plants.

This is also the case in nursing homes, where staff have been waiting up to three weeks for results. As these delays have seriously undermined the value of the screening process, will the Minister ensure that all residents and staff members are re-tested immediately and the results issued in a timely manner? This also needs to be done in meat plants and staff instructed to self-isolate until they have received a clear result.

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