Fintan O’Toole: Turning a blind eye to meat plants a very old habit

Imagine how bad things would have to get for TDs to be recalled from their holidays. There would probably need to be some terrible freak event such as a global pandemic. But as it happens, this month we have the 30th anniversary of just such a crisis, when half-tanned TDs and senators were summoned from beaches and pubs to face a shattering national emergency.

Officially, the Oireachtas was recalled in August 1990 to discuss what the then taoiseach Charles Haughey called "the Middle East situation" – Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. But the pretence was quickly abandoned. Everyone knew that the emergency that had forced this unprecedented rush back to Leinster House was the impending collapse of Ireland's biggest meat processor.

Goodman International, a group of private companies almost wholly owned by Larry Goodman, was about to go into liquidation. Goodman owed a range of Irish and international banks the then staggering sum of £480 million. Saddam was defaulting on £180 million he owed Goodman. Insolvency beckoned.

It has been clear almost from the start of the coronavirus crisis here that meat plants are a major hazard

So a whole new system of examinership was drafted, ratified and enacted in a couple of days. This was the most dramatic demonstration of the awesome political power of the meat processing industry. Saving Private Larry was a national mission and by God, the State would not be found wanting. It was one of those rare moments when the painted scenery of Irish politics falls down and you get a glimpse of the workings of power backstage.

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Severe restrictions

Fast forward 30 years and here we are again at another such moment – Power Play II: Return of the Meatmen. The facts are as brutal as the slash of a deboning knife on a carcass: the populations of three whole counties – Laois, Offaly and Kildare – were placed under very severe restrictions last week because the State really, really doesn’t like upsetting the meat processing industry.

It has been clear almost from the start of the coronavirus crisis here that meat plants are a major hazard. Yet the State has been remarkably reluctant to impose conditions on their continued operation strict enough to prevent these plants from acting as vectors for the virus.

It may seem improbable that what happened 30 years ago has much relevance to what’s happening now. Except that what happened back then is nothing much. Media and political revelations forced the establishment of a tribunal of inquiry. It highlighted a litany of abuses by meat processors: workers paid under the counter without tax or insurance, theft of EU intervention beef on a vast scale, forgery of official stamps, abuse of the State’s export credit insurance scheme, blind eyes turned by the Department of Agriculture, deliberate obfuscation and even downright lying by ministers to cover up the truth.

Damn all

And what happened? Damn all. The only people who were prosecuted were a few low-level employees in one Goodman plant in Rathkeale and Susan O’Keeffe, the journalist who did most to expose the abuses. The main whistleblower, Patrick McGuinness, emigrated to Canada. Larry Goodman, who has always insisted that he knew nothing about all the shenanigans perpetrated by underlings, eventually got control of his empire back and is now worth about €2.5 billion, his companies comfortably nestled in Luxembourg and Lichtenstein. Ironically, he also moved into the healthcare business, with big stakes in Galway, Blackrock and Hermitage clinics.

The non-EU workers are, like indentured servants, bound to their employers by their work permits

I’m not suggesting that the practices uncovered in the 1990s are still prevalent in the meat processing industry or that most of those involved in it are anything but honest. None of the recent clusters in meat plants have occured at plants owned by Goodman.

Political clout

But history has shown two things. One is that the industry has very considerable political clout. The other is that deep in its DNA is the knowledge that the government has turned a blind eye to the industry’s failings in the past.

And in one respect, things are even worse than they were 30 years ago. Back then, workers in the plants were often given little choice other than to go along with the evasion of tax and labour laws. Now, most of the workers are even more vulnerable. Of 15,338 meat plant workers, 8,896 are migrants – Polish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Latvian, Moldovan, Slovakian, Brazilian, South African, Botswanan and Filipino. The non-EU workers are, like indentured servants, bound to their employers by their work permits. Many are employed through agencies, further weakening their rights. Catastrophically in the current context, most get no sick pay, so they have to turn up for work even when they have symptoms of Covid-19.

Raised the alarm

Siptu, which organises workers in the plants, first raised the alarm about the obvious health consequences of all of this in March and has since repeatedly warned that, if there was going to be a second wave of infection, it would begin in a meat plant. Yet, two months passed between the first case of Covid-19 in a meat plant and the issuance of safety guidance by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre. As late as May 19th, the Health and Safety Authority admitted it had carried out precisely zero Covid-related inspections at meat plants.

The old habit of looking the other way has persisted. However high the stakes, it seems that the priority of keeping the steaks on the shelves will always be higher.