Ms Oonagh Buckley:

On the isolation rooms, off-site isolation rooms are supported by a section 39 agency that provides the necessary supports. That was done by arrangement with each of the CHO areas. With the on-site isolation rooms it is a little more difficult to say, but they are only ever a temporary solution while a person is waiting for a test result. If he or she is confirmed positive, or is in close contact with others, he or she is taken to one of the off-site self-isolation facilities.

There are rotas for all the shared rooms and facilities, and we strongly encourage centre management to put that in place, and continue to encourage them to do so. It is far and away the best way to manage this within what is a closely-confined setting where people have to share laundry facilities, eating areas, and so forth.

With regard to people of African descent, we have cocooned everybody identified to us as either in the first or second category of health vulnerability. Those were identified to us by the HSE. We have to go by what it tells us because we do not hold people's health information. We have not been given any additional advice around people of African descent, but obviously if that becomes part of the evolving knowledge the HSE passes onto us, we would do whatever it asked us to in that regard.