Mr. Damien McCallion:

On private testing, I can answer that fairly quickly. Private laboratories that undertake PCR testing are obliged to report those to public health and to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, HPSC. Positive results for PCR will come through in the HPSC figures that are reported regularly. We get results as well from private hospitals. Those numbers feed into our own system but, as I say, there is a legislative requirement under the infectious disease legislation for private laboratories. We would be in contact with those we know on a regular basis to make sure that is happening in a timely manner for all the reasons the members have set out.

I will have to revert to the Deputy on the point about the specifics of the cataract procedures. While I am familiar with the fact that people travel South to North, and, indeed, North to South, in terms of my other role, all I would say on its safety or otherwise is that people clearly should observe whatever the public health regulations are in the two jurisdictions at any point in time in terms of travel. There are also people who, by nature of the jobs in healthcare or other settings, need to travel across the Border on a regular basis. People should adhere to the regulations in the two jurisdictions at any point in time. Equally, I recognise that there are significant numbers of people who travel across the Border every day and who, within those regulations, are entitled to do so. That would include access to healthcare but also healthcare staff. The numbers who travel across are big. On the specific matter, maybe I could come back to Deputy Colm Burke. If the Deputy can forward me some details, I can pick up the particular point about cataracts. That is a broader issue than Covid and maybe we can link it to the acute hospitals.