Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Reid and the rest of the team for their work and for their attendance. I have three questions initially and we will see how I get on with the time. Mr. Reid said earlier that the median turnaround time for testing and tracing for positive cases is 3.5 days. Is that for all testing and tracing or does he have a figure that relates to community cases only?

My second question relates to the overall cost of testing and tracing. Mr. Reid said to us here back in June that the estimated cost was approximately €450 million on the basis of testing 15,000 per day. Thankfully, we did not have to do that for the summer months. In recent times the HSE has been gearing up for 15,000 per day. What is the current estimated annual cost for the full testing and tracing system, bearing in mind that lull period during the summer?

My third question concerns tracing. Many of us were surprised and concerned when we learned within the past two weeks that the tracing element of the service only goes back 48 hours and, because of that, we do not really have a handle on the places of transmission of the virus. I read in recent days that the intention is that the HSE will start going back four, five or six days to establish where a person has picked up the virus. Can I take it, then, that the HSE's recruitment reflects that intention? How soon would the HSE expect to be in a position to do that tracing over a number of days for all positive cases?