Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha:

If I contract Covid-19 at work, my employer is required to notify that to public health because it is a public health concern. It is not required to report it to the Health and Safety Authority as an occupational problem - an occupationally acquired illness. If I go into work this evening, work in a ward, am injured in the course of my duty and am absent for three days, there is a statutory responsibility on my employer to notify the Health and Safety Authority if that is a physical assault. The consequences of getting infected with Covid-19 are such that the long-term effects about which we are now learning are catastrophic in many cases. The employer is the health service. If it was a meat factory, it would be exactly the same. An employer is not going to investigate its own practice sufficiently objectively to determine whether it had any part in that infection. Therefore, that is the purpose of an independent investigative process, which in this country is the responsibility of the Health and Safety Authority. In the event that someone dies from Covid-19, it is not a reportable death to the Health and Safety Authority if the person is a healthcare worker who acquired that infection at work. This is wrong. An occupational illness or injury should have that status if it is caused by an infection, assault or anything in which one's employment was the main factor.