Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Walsh. We would be very grateful if we received that correspondence.

I have some questions for Dr. MacLellan on March. I asked a number of questions of Mr. Breslin, the then Secretary General, on the transfer, and I also questioned Dr. Colm Henry at the time. We know there were 800 applications to transfer persons from hospitals to nursing homes. I have a series of questions and might ask them all at once. That might be handier. How many of the 800 patients were transferred? Of the 800, how many were tested once and how many were tested twice? Were they tested as a matter of routine, as per the regulations on 10 March, or were they tested only as per the case definition at the time, based on their being symptomatic? If a person was asymptomatic, would he or she have been tested in the first instance, much less tested twice, prior to transfer? I fully respect and appreciate the need to make space in our hospitals because of the mismanagement by successive Governments, chronic overcrowding and all that. My question is specifically on the 800 people in March.