A meat industry group says the Covid positivity rate in the sector is 10 times lower than in the general population

Meat Industry Ireland is denying that meat plants are a hotbed of Covid outbreaks

Senior director Cormac Healy told the Oireachtas enterprise committee that there is serial testing in factories.

And he says the number of cases being found is low.

"If you look at some of the recent community testing that was carried out in pop up centres as we've heard on the news in recent times. I mean, they were getting positivity rates of 3 to 4% And I go back to the fact that, most recent cycle that we're currently in, in testing at meat plants, the positivity ratio is 0.36%. There are significant mitigation control prevention measures in place"