Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses, officials and Ms Sinnamon from Enterprise Ireland. They would agree that critical to the success of reopening our economy will be our collective commitment to ensuring that the health and safety of business owners and workers is secured insofar as it possibly can be. I and other colleagues have raised over the past few weeks the importance of ensuring that we have a sufficient number of trained HSA inspectors to ensure compliance with the guidance currently in place. How many inspectors are currently in training and from where have those potential inspectors been sourced? My recollection is that a commitment was made to redeploy staff from the HSE and give them the necessary training they would require to be HSA inspectors. Dr. Quinn might elaborate on that and state when they will be in the field.

I ask her to confirm how many inspections have been undertaken to date in respect of compliance with the new Return to Work Safely Protocol. Have any compliance notices been issues by the HSA to any employers who have breached the regulations and guidance in place?

With regard to health and safety, would Dr. Quinn agree that Covid-19 should be reclassified as an occupational illness, in other words, as a condition that can be and is being contracted in the workplace? The evidence from NPHET and various experts working in the field shows the relatively high number, proportionately, of healthcare workers who have contracted Covid-19 in the course of their work.