Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will go through my questions and then ask the witnesses to respond. I accept that we are in a very difficult situation at the moment. We are seeing 1,000 cases a day, each one of which has numerous contacts. Let us take a step back to last month before this recent surge. A report, entitled COVID-19 Testing and Tracing: Roadmap to enhance capacity and turnaround, was published to great fanfare on 14 May. One of the risks highlighted in the report was rapid scaling up of volumes of activity. That was always a risk. As a mitigating measure, the report recommended stress-testing current operations to provide resilience. That was published on 14 May, long before the summer and the recent surge.

We heard in evidence this morning that the warning bells started ringing during the August bank holiday weekend. On 23 September, I raised the specific issue of contact tracing with the Minister for Defence on the floor of the House. He stated that the Defence Forces were waiting for a phone call from the HSE. That was seven weeks after the warning bells had started to ring. The documentation provided to us this morning states that the HSE has engaged with numerous public bodies, which have offered their support as part of the contact tracing effort. It also makes it clear that the HSE received offers of support from other bodies rather than seeking support itself. From the August bank holiday weekend on, which agencies and Departments that had previously provided contact tracers were contacted? Were any of the contact tracers who had been trained up for the first wave of infection offered temporary, part-time or out-of-hours contracts under which they could work in the evenings or on the weekends? Those contact tracers had built up the system's capacity.

I received an email at 12 noon today regarding a parliamentary question I tabled at the beginning of the month. The email was dated last Thursday, 22 October, and was from Ms O'Beirne. I had asked about the number of HSE staff that have been deployed to contact tracing. The figures provided to me this morning indicate that 430 health and social care professionals were employed as contact tracers and testers last month. Can someone explain to me why occupational therapists and physical therapists were involved in contact tracing and testing last month when there was no surge? Why had efforts not been made to fill those positions with alternative staff before the surge? If that had been done, those 450 staff members could have been recalled to deal with the present surge. It seems that all the HSE staff currently involved in contact tracing are qualified medical professionals. Are any administrative staff involved in contact tracing?

Ms O'Beirne stated in her evidence that the number of HSE staff involved in contact tracing will decrease as other staff are brought on stream. I have been told by the CEO of the HSE and in replies to parliamentary questions that this will only happen after the full complement of 800 staff is recruited. Based on this morning's evidence, it will be the week before Christmas before all of those staff are recruited. This means that none of the HSE staff will return to their old posts until the new year. Ms O'Beirne went on to say that once the 800 staff are recruited, a decision will be made on whether the number should increase to 1,000. Can she clarify whether those staff members will be redeployed in advance of Christmas week? Alternatively, will we have to wait until the 800 staff have been recruited, as was indicated in parliamentary replies I have received?