Mr. Paul Reid:

I thank the Deputy for her comments about our staff. In all my comments I refer not only to HSE staff but to healthcare workers in general across the country, including GPs. All our healthcare workers have done a phenomenal job with us, for us, and for the public.

With specific regard to the public health advice, I will say two things. The first is that the advice on the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, HPSC, website is public health advice for all workforces and all organisations. As Dr. Henry said with regard to how that advice is applied, managed, monitored and implemented, our public health teams provide significant amounts of advice - particularly in recent weeks and again this week - to different sectors that contact us about opening arrangements. Our teams provide them with a level of advice separate to what is available on the site. The Health and Safety Authority, HSA, is playing a lead role and takes a big lead from our public health advice. It is directly engaged, even today, with our teams with regard to the application of public health advice. There are a number of significant working groups led by the HSA and our own teams which inspect sites for other reasons. For example, our environmental health officers may be carrying out particular inspections and, while doing so, they may take cognisance of the wider public health advice. All of that is being worked through with the HSA.

On the Deputy's questions with regard to healthcare workers, we are concerned about any positivity rates across the healthcare system and about how the infection may transmit further. Earlier I mentioned that hospitalisation rates and rates of admission to ICU were falling as a result of a number of actions we have taken, particularly some of the actions taken in congregated settings and nursing homes. In some cases agency workers may work between a number of different settings over a period of a week or, in some cases, a day. We took very early actions so that employers and agencies would ensure that staff were assigned to dedicated locations so that they would not have the opportunity to transmit the disease to other locations. That was one action.

A second action relates to accommodation. Significant numbers of staff and healthcare workers, both HSE and non-HSE, were provided with accommodation. Ms. O'Connor will provide details on this in a few minutes. Healthcare workers who shared accommodation with other healthcare workers were put into other locations to reduce the risk of the virus spreading between healthcare workers.