'Over 40 meat plant workers sharing rooms in Offaly town'

Over 40 meat plant workers are sharing rooms and accommodation in a town in Offaly, a Special Oireachtas Committee on Covid-19 Response heard yesterday.

Greg Ennis, a manufacturing division organiser with SIPTU (pictured, top), told the Oireachtas committee yesterday that he had been “reliably advised in recent days that upwards of 40 migrant meat plant workers are sharing rooms and accommodation in a certain town in Offaly.”

“Should this prove to be the case and if we are truly serious about defeating Covid transmission within the meat industry, this hot bedding of workers has to stop. Surely this is not an Ireland that anyone would want to be proud of or indeed be associated with,” he said.

The Oireachtas committee, which was dealing with outbreaks in meat plants, also heard that the Health and Safety Authority has no role in relation to where employees live or how they travel to work.

The HSA CEO Dr Sharon McGuinness said: “Our remit is occupational health and safety within the confines of the workplace. It is work activity and the worker and persons affected by that work activity.”

She clarified that where the worker lives is outside the HSA's remit and that transport to and from work is not their responsibility either.

“Many of the factors that are causing the issues are often outside of work and it is about that shared responsibility between public health, occupational health and all the relevant players,” she said.

Earlier, Greg Ennis said he did not know why the numbers of cases were high in the three lockdown counties.

He pointed out that earlier there were cases in meat plants in other areas “where 25% of the workforce had confirmed cases of Covid-19 in some instances.”

He said there were five clusters in meat plants with outbreaks of more than 100 confirmed cases.

“The reason for this has as much to do with what is happening outside of the workplace as with what is happening in it. Some employers have worked well with us. Unfortunately, many workers share accommodation and rooms … and are being forced to carpool because they are paid a pittance.”