Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha:

First, we had a call last Friday with the International Council of Nurses and our figures were the highest. That is not something we are proud of. We strongly believe that there were two policies that directly influenced the situation. The first is that a shortage of PPE created a situation where supply was more important than protection. In other words, we were having meetings with the HSE about decisions, for example, on the wearing of face masks. We had to lobby and cajole the HSE. I think I wrote six letters in all, seeking to introduce a policy whereby the wearing of face masks would be mandatory and they would be provided for all healthcare workers. We had a situation where one of our members was sent off duty because she attended duty with a face mask. She was advised by her management that it was against HSE policy and she was actually sent home. That became an industrial relations matter which we then resolved. On 22 April the HSE's policy for the mandatory wearing of face masks by all healthcare workers was introduced. We saw a dramatic drop in the number of infections of healthcare workers from that date onwards. When we raised that with the HSE it stated that at the same time there was a coincidental drop in the general infection rate of the population. We do not accept that. We believe that face masks should have been mandatory from the very beginning in every single healthcare setting because our testing and tracing was not, and still is not, sophisticated enough to determine who is infected and who is not. We have also learnt that asymptomatic presentation, in other words, people with no symptoms, can still be infectious. Therefore, waiting for somebody to develop a temperature before he or she started wearing PPE was a mistake. That is particularly relevant in the community sector.