Ms Anne O'Connor:

On nursing homes, the statutory, or the assistance scheme is, as the Deputy has said, administered by the HSE. In the work we have been doing to support nursing homes the Deputy will be aware that we established the Covid-19 response teams early in the pandemic and we look to continue those from now on. It became apparent that the support relates to the clinical oversight in nursing homes and how we support people who require that clinical governance. It is something we are actively working on and this aspect features in the report we got last week. The first meeting for the oversight of the implementation of the report happened yesterday. From our perspective, with regard to people attending outpatient appointments there are agreements around testing for people accessing any of our services in hospitals prior to attendance. Our priority, however, is to be able to ensure we can provide support to people in nursing homes as they need it. Building on the learning over the last couple of months and building on the experience of the Covid-19 response teams, which have been proven to be extremely positive, we will continue that to see how we can provide more comprehensive support.