Professor Cecily Kelleher:

I sincerely hope that lessons have been learned and we will not see a recurrence of what we have seen already. Four things really drove the vulnerability of this particular sector and they are the seriousness of the disease; the frailty and vulnerability of the population in question; the fact that a congregated setting is a very risky environment for the transmission and management of the virus where it is the home of the people concerned; and, the preparedness and response component. We discussed the latter earlier this morning. This rate is a very high rate. It is a deeply regrettable rate but our international review has shown that across the globe we are learning this lesson in terms of this setting. It was not just in Ireland that this situation occured that has thrown up the important questions that we need to address here.

Are we confident? The committee will meet representatives of the Department of Health later on. Earlier we talked about the nature of the current clusters and how many may be picked up now by the rolling testing process, which is a difference from where we originally started. The whole infection, prevention, control and preparedness piece is very important. We said earlier that the incidence on the east coast was higher and hence that drove risk in the congregated settings in those areas. We are trying to do everything we can to keep it out because that is what we absolutely must do to be vigilant and protect people. Essentially, we need to roll out what we have set out in this, and is what the stakeholders told us, in order to have as much confidence as possible.