Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate Mr. Reid and his team coming to us again today. I will take us back to the first days in March when there was an outbreak in a local school in my constituency. Some of the communications around the early stages were possible because there was a small number of incidents. Given the reopening of schools taking place, has the HSE looked at the communication strategy for what will happen when an outbreak takes place, as it inevitably will, in a school?

In my experience, there was much confusion, particularly because of social media and because the information was able to travel so quickly. In the absence of any statutory decisions on what would happen, all sorts of confusion emerged. If an outbreak takes place in a school, will all the children have to self-isolate? Will brothers and sisters have to self-isolate? Will team members of a local soccer or GAA group have to self-isolate if cases emerge there? We need to be really clear because a strong communications strategy is really necessary, alongside the public health strategy.