Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their detailed submissions. There is so much in them that I wish I had more time to deal with them and the committee had more time to interrogate everything that needs to be interrogated. I hope the witnesses will forgive me for picking out a couple of issues from one of the submissions that caught my eye, namely, the quotes from SIPTU members. One of them said that at times there was rationing of PPE and workers were made to feel guilty for asking for it. Another said that it is now very difficult to get access to hand sanitiser and masks.

PPE is locked away in the manager's office and if that manager is not in, it runs out. This is quite shocking to hear given the assurances we have been given by the HSE and Government which suggested that this should no longer be an issue in light of the stocks of PPE available to be provided to all front-line and support staff. It seems to still be an issue. Based on that submission, I would be interested if Ms Monahan could give us more detail on her experiences in her work as a radiographer. She touched on this in her first contribution.

Mr. King mentioned at the outset that SIPTU represents a broad spectrum of staff. What has SIPTU learned that would be useful should there be a second wave of Covid?