David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Okay. Why was that not done over the summer months? In her opening statement Ms O'Beirne had to apologise to 1,961 people. There was much commentary on whether the system was fit for purpose and whether we had used the summer months wisely. We are now being told that 60 or 70 staff will be recruited per week. Why only 60 or 70? Why can that not be accelerated? Leaving that aside though, why was this not done in the summer?

If we had all of those staff in place, it may well have been the case that the system may not have collapsed and the HSE would not have to come before the committee today to apologise to those people. Why is recruitment only happening now? Why were all of the additional staff who could have been employed during the summer months not put in place?

Does the HSE not accept that we are in the middle of a second wave? The numbers are the highest they have been at any point in time. They went down a little bit in recent days. Over the past week we have seen cases in excess of 1,200 a day, the highest at any point in the pandemic. Yet, we only have 581 people available for contact tracing, a figure that will increase to 800. Why was recruitment not done during the summer months? It is an obvious question that people will ask.