Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

-----and they are very different. I want to tell the Minister why they are different. She should read the article in today's edition of The Guardianabout workers in the meat factories. I hope it pulls the strings of the Minister's heart, because it pulls mine when one listens to those workers talking about the experience they have been through. At least one worker has died and hundreds have been infected. According to the article in The Guardian:

“One hundred per cent, I know I got it in the factory,” [one worker said] “If the disease was in the animals, they’d have closed the place. But for workers, the factories can do what they want.”

These workers feel intimidated. They are vulnerable and they are not being treated with dignity and respect. There is no checking of temperature, no masks, no 2 m distancing and when they asked for masks they were told, "No". Many of them are migrants and because of the low pay, they live in communal housing and the risk of the disease spreading among them is very great indeed.

Today, I got a response from the HSE, which tells me it set up an outbreak control team in the meat industry this day one week ago and it has met once. I am disturbed by the lack of urgency from the Department on workers' rights. The Minister can talk all she likes about the need for industry and businesses to resume. I agree that they do need to resume. I know tens of thousands of workers are anxious to get back to work, but, for God's sake, let us bring them back to work in safe conditions. Workers need to know there is legislation that covers them. It is section 27(e) of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005. If a person feels unsafe at work, under the legislation, he or she can walk away from the workplace without fear of intimidation or dismissal because the workplace is not protected. If the Minister was protecting those workplaces, she would not have given us a document full of caveats. It is like a sieve because it states many times that employers, in as far as practicable, should provide masks if they can and that facilities should be provided if they are reasonably practicable.

The Minister repeatedly told many Deputies here today that the HSA would inspect workplaces. It has not inspected one out of 200 complaints at the height of the Covid pandemic in this country. By her own admission, she stated the HSA had not gone to one workplace. She refused to answer the question of Deputy Paul Murphy and other Deputies on how many additional inspectors would be provided. I do not believe the Minister has the interests of employees at heart. Her document and her interest is all about the employer. I have just come from a radio interview with Tom Parlon. Not once did he mention the employer or the responsibility of his members. He consistently mentioned the personal responsibility of workers to mask up, to use PPE and to socially distance. If two construction workers are walking across a 4 ft wide plank, how can they keep a 2 m distance between them? They cannot do it. Let us make no mistake about it, when the construction industry resumes, the pressure will be on to get a structure built, to get the cement in and to get it done. There will be breaches; even travelling to work will be a breach. We have rushed to get the leaving certificate cancelled but we have no problem sending more than 100,000 workers from all parts of the country back into very unsafe conditions without any proper redress. I do not believe this document has either teeth or power to do what is required. It is the Minister's responsibility. I do not need the answers now.

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