Mr. Jim Breslin:

On testing, the Deputy mentioned that it was taking five days last week. The target, which I believe we will achieve, is to reduce this to three days for 70% of all tests. There will be further improvements in this regard. One such improvement is to text people whose results are negative. This automation will speed things up. We want to continue to improve in this area. The system was patched together but it now needs to be redesigned end to end. The HSE is doing this and is working on its information systems and processing systems to get testing as close to real time as possible.

With regard to the impact on health services, on 5 May, NPHET advised that we could restart non-essential care within the health services. We are in the process of ramping up and planning for that in what will be a very different environment. It will undoubtedly take longer to do many procedures. To take endoscopy as an example, a single endoscopy is usually very quick to do. One will now have to put PPE on, do the procedure, take the PPE off again, decontaminate the area, and then bring someone back in. It will take longer and will cost more so there is a good chance we will end up doing less over this period. The way to buffer that is with innovation such as using technology, including telehealth and so on. The healthcare environment, however, will be very challenged for the foreseeable future.

On private hospitals, it is relevant that non-essential care was not taking place in either public or private hospitals up until the start of this month. We are, therefore, also in a ramping-up phase in private hospitals. A good deal more than half of consultants have signed up. We have made good progress in recent days. The Deputy is right however. Before the end of this month we need to stand back and review the situation in its entirety. One of the mandates we had in conducting negotiations was to prevent a situation in which, during the course of a pandemic, private patients could be in private hospitals because they had private health insurance while their care was paid for by the taxpayer. This would have undercut solidarity in our national effort. That was the motivation behind the arrangements we have put in place. It is important to acknowledge that a further wave or surge could happen at any stage and, in that case, we would need that capacity. The health system is not well-endowed with capacity.

I may return to the question of the medium to longer-term strategy as answering would eat into Dr. Holohan's time.