22 May 2020

...Who would expect that, outside of nursing homes and hospitals, the meat industry would be the other flash point for Covid-19?...

Around 5,000 workers in the US meat industry have been diagnosed with Covid-19. It's been ripping through slaughterhouses in Germany, Portugal, Australia, Spain and Brazil too.

The Irish experience is not isolated.

But the admission this week that the Health and Safety Authority has not carried out a single inspection, despite numerous complaints and obvious issues, has shocked many...

It's an industry that is dominated by migrant labour... The fact many migrant workers share accommodation, principally due to their low pay, has been attributed to the spread of the virus in the sector. But there are other reasons Covid-19 is a bigger problem in the meat sector.