Dr. Kevin Kelleher:

The question the Deputy is asking is debated regularly at NPHET meetings, where NPHET is the focal point for that advice to the Government. NPHET has consistently made the points the Deputy has made. He will have heard the Chief Medical Officer, the deputy chief medical officer, our chief clinical officer here and other people talk repeatedly about asking people to do those things. There are also issues, generally speaking, for the Government about how those regulations are governed. The HSE is not directly involved in that but we have been speaking to people about how we do it. As Deputy Durkan says, we have rightly been looking to see how we can deal with some of those issues. We have pinpointed some of those events. We have had discussions with organisations about this. We are in regular discussions with other parts of government about these areas - I am involved with some, others are involved in others - trying to ensure that this is done. It is interesting to note that we have seen a significant improvement on what happens in some of the industries we have been involved in. The biggest issue, as the Deputy quite rightly says, is non-observance in general and in parts of society not following what we are asking people to do. It is very difficult because that is the behavioural change we are trying to get in place to cope with the disease until we have some method of dealing with it that does not involve the significant behavioural changes we are asking for at the moment.