Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Most definitely. We quickly had to create a testing and tracing system out of thin air. Some of it requires clinical training. Our therapists did amazing things. They volunteered as swabbers and as part of the first call on contact tracing. They also volunteered to be deployed to our nursing homes, which were dealing with extraordinary crises. Physiotherapists in Wicklow whose roles did not include working in nursing homes volunteered to support what was going on. They did extraordinary stuff. The HSE is currently hiring in excess of 3,000 people in order that we will have a non-seconded workforce for testing and tracing. What the HSE is trying to do, and I want to see happen as quickly as possible, is to get every front-line clinician who was seconded back out in the community treating the patients that they need and want to be treating.