Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha:

The numbers from last year's flu epidemic indicated that the pressure on ICU beds was significant.

We know that those who get very sick with Covid-19 require intensive care beds and that we do not have a surplus of those beds in this country. That indicates that the private hospital facilities must remain available to the public health service. The intensive care beds and units are already staffed and they have ventilators. They must be available.

The flu epidemic has been a feature of every winter and our hospitals have been extraordinarily overcrowded every year right into February. There is no indication that will be any different this year, but what will be different is that we will also have Covid-19. We will have to redouble our efforts to make sure we have the necessary capacity and staff available.

Trade unions, including the INMO, agreed over the past two winters that our members would engage in a peer vaccination programme. That is a policy of the HSE. In other words, if a nurse works in hospital A or B in the public or private sector, he or she can vaccinate his or her peers. Our members now vaccinate their colleagues to ensure the greatest possible uptake of the vaccine when it is available.