Dr. Ronan Glynn:

To respond to the Deputy's first question about high-risk settings or places, my background is in public health medicine, and one of the reasons we get into public health medicine is to level up and help those in society who are most vulnerable. If a pandemic does anything, it shines a light on those in our society who are most vulnerable, and this pandemic is no different. The work my colleagues in the HSE and public health are doing now is just on a greater scale in respect of vulnerable groups: Roma, the Travelling community, those living in direct provision and those living in residential care facilities. Infectious diseases impact these groups disproportionately, and we need to continue to do all we can to ensure that these groups in particular are protected as we navigate our way through the coming months. That is why at all times when I talk about where we are going with this, I say this is one of the three priorities on which we must focus.

As a society, we all have a role to play as individuals in keeping transmission of this disease low so that those who are less fortunate than ourselves are protected from community transmission and the effects it will have on them if they become infected.

In relation to antigen testing and blood plasma, I would say that all new technologies and interventions, including testing and diagnostic screening treatments, are being kept under review. We are open to all of them. At present we are looking at new forms of testing to complement our existing nasopharyngeal swab and polymerase chain reaction, PCR, tests and we will continue to do that. We are constantly looking to improve our surveillance, whether through waste-water surveillance or other methods. This is an evolving situation. We are learning, but we do not want to rush something through that is not ready or will have unintended detrimental consequences in terms of our ability to manage this. We are absolutely open to learning, changing and evolving, but we need to do that in a considered way.

In relation to the avoidance of public transport where possible, the effect on air pollution is not one of our considerations in the first instance given that we have recommended this for such a short period of time and that wider use of transport more generally would have been down so much for such a prolonged period of time. Of course, I understand that our recommendations have an impact, but when we make recommendations the intention is that if those recommendations are effective, they will only be implemented for a short and targeted period of time to protect public health in the first instance.