Dr. Ronan Glynn:

Thus far, we have evolved our approach from a national set of measures and easing out of same, to a county level approach. I have seen speculation - which has not come from NPHET - about a lower level approach outside cities. I do have some concerns and we have seen some ill effects from the county approach, namely, that people in counties that are not directly mentioned on a regular basis perhaps feel that the risk is less and are thus less likely to adhere to the messages. As such there are pros and cons. Professor Nolan may wish to come in on this but increasingly, we are getting data which supports our long-standing view that people do not live, work, socialise, play and interact within their village, town or city. People move about and to a large extent they move about within their county on a very regular basis. Of course if it comes to it with County Cork or any other county we will look at the specifics and see whether a more nuanced approach is appropriate. To the Deputy's point, the reason for the messaging around Cork was not to warn people that a move to level 3 was imminent, it was to warn people to protect themselves and others so we could get the cases down in order that level 3 would never be required.