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

I want to raise a specific case that has come to my attention. It relates to four people in a house-share in Galway, three of whom are from Donegal and one of whom tested positive a week ago. Obviously, they have all been restricting their movement. They were advised that the HSE would be in touch but one week on nobody has been in touch with them. They have contacted the HSE but they cannot get any advancement on their case. They have been telephoning the helpline as advised for the past week. Is there a separate helpline they could contact? If it was not for their flatmate having told them of the positive test result they would not know of it and they could be out and about. I am mindful of the graph that Dr. Glynn provided. As these are college students, they could have a high number of contacts. They have done the sensible thing but their flatmate was told that they would be contact traced and they have not yet had any contact to that effect. There are deficits in the system. Those deficits need to be plugged. We need to get directly employed staff into this area as a matter of urgency.