Mr. Jim Breslin:

On the German lab, I can say it is not more expensive than Irish labs, including some of those that we have introduced more recently. The number of labs that are now testing in the National Virus Reference Laboratory, NVRL, has gone from one to 41, so we have taken account of capacity where we have been able to find it. With reference to lengths of time, a backlog of tests went to Germany and therefore by the time those people got their result there was a delay. However, the results coming back from Germany are very much within the next day, so there is not that length of time. The HSE will always look commercially at where best to do this and have regard to the turnaround time. That will be a dynamic situation which we will keep under review as we go along. We have added significant private sector labs in Ireland. One of our biggest labs now is a private sector lab, so there is an openness in the HSE to try to secure turnaround and cost effectiveness, but also the quality that we need, which would be foremost.

I have said what I have said on private hospitals. I do not envisage that people will have to go right back to the start of a waiting list. That is not what the policy says. There will be a review before the end of the month. We will take everything into account, but one of those things will be the World Health Organization's advice that the most likely scenario here is for recurring waves. The idea that we had our experience and now we can move on is absolutely not the case. We could be subject to a further wave, in which case we would be back to looking at a modest amount of ICU capacity within our public health service and wondering if we will be able to cope in that situation. There are strong arguments for using all of the capacity that we have nationally and for reviewing it on that basis.