Dr. Siobhán Kennelly:

That is incorrect. The protocols that are in place and that have been developed in conjunction with colleagues in public health and infection prevention control speak to the role of testing in the specific patient scenarios. The Deputy has to remember that in early March we were still in a situation where many of our hospitals did not have Covid-19 and many of the people who were being transferred out would not have had any exposure to Covid-19. In those instances, it was appropriate not to test patients but all transfers were given a caveat that where there were any suspected symptoms, patients were not to be transferred and they were to be tested first. In addition, all facilities were to have appropriate isolation facilities to be able to manage and monitor patients with appropriate precautions from an infection control point of view for a 14-day period when that transfer was made.