Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha:

That is our aim. I was asked earlier what we thought caused it to be so high. I think some policies were introduced that we believe should not have been introduced, one being the non-wearing of face masks. A policy was introduced when the workforce was under pressure to give a derogation to essential healthcare workers allowing them to return to work if they had been close contacts of Covid-positive people in the community or through their workplace unless they developed a temperature. Again, we believe that was a mistake considering that we now know that asymptomatic people also could transmit. Therefore, we believe those policies should obviously be removed - the face mask one is; the derogation one is still there. We believe the HSE should very definitely issue a retraction of that policy. It simply cannot say that a health worker who does not have a temperature, even though he or she has been a close contact, should not isolate for 14 days like everybody else. Of course, they should. Fourteen days should be mandatory for healthcare workers, as it is for ordinary members of the public.