Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair for his remarks and his welcome. I also thank the committee members; I am delighted to be here today. It is my first time to attend a meeting of the new health committee and I wish all its members well in their work. I look forward to engaging with them to that end on a regular basis.

I am joined by my colleagues, the Minister of State with responsibility for public health, well-being and the national drugs strategy, Deputy Feighan, and Minister of State with responsibility for mental health and older people, Deputy Butler.

The committee invited me to give an update on the implementation of the resilience and recovery plan for living with Covid-19 and the timeframe for delivery of budget 2021 measures. As I believe has been communicated to the committee, the implementation of the budget is being developed with the HSE and the implementation plan will be available as part of the national service plan that will be published in December. I am happy to return to the committee and discuss that plan when the detail is finalised.

I am going to focus on Covid for now, if that is okay. As we all know, it has been a difficult year for everyone in Ireland and across the world. Tens of thousands of people here have contracted Covid-19. Many have made a full recovery but some have been left with serious long-term health issues. We all know that, as of today, 1,922 women and men in Ireland have lost their lives to this virus. We all mourn this tragic loss of life.

The decision to move to level 5 two weeks ago was made due to evidence showing the rapid increase in case numbers and the need to get the virus down to much lower levels. I am glad to share with my colleagues that there have been positive signs in recent days. As of yesterday, the 14-day incidence rate was 228 cases per 100,000. There were 278 per 100,000 in the previous 14-day period. The rate is falling in 23 of the 26 counties. I am happy to share new information that the R-nought, which was at 1 last week, has been recalculated as of this morning to between 0.7 and 0.9. Critically, the average number of close contacts has fallen from approximately six to three and the testing positivity rate is also falling and now stands at 4.7%. By moving early and comprehensively, Ireland is currently bucking the trend that is being seen in many parts of Europe. The 14-day rate in France, for example, is 830 per 100,000. In Spain, it is 567 and in the UK, it is 469.

While our figures are hopeful, the number of positive cases remains of serious concern and it is worth reflecting on the fact that almost 11,000 new cases have been reported in the past two weeks. We must continually and actively suppress this virus to the greatest extent possible. Part of this response comes from our testing and tracing system. Our testing rates are high by international standards and we continue to run serial testing in nursing homes and food production facilities. As committee members will be aware, the HSE initially put in place capacity to meet the advice of the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, to be able to do up to 100,000 tests per week. I met with representatives of the HSE some time ago and asked if they would look to increase that capacity. Testing capacity was recently increased from 100,000 tests per week to 120,000 tests per week. I am delighted to be able to share for the first time that the HSE has now confirmed that it can do up to 140,000 tests per week. I want to give the men and women working in the HSE great credit for that. They are working night and day and to go from 100,000 tests, which was already favourable by international standards, to 140,000 is fantastic work. I thank them for it.

In parallel, it is important that demand for testing has gone down by at least 40% in the past week. That is obviously in line with the number of infections coming down. At the same time, the HSE continues to recruit contract tracers and community swabbers. It is important to say that testing and tracing alone is not going to suppress this pandemic here or anywhere else. We must work together to protect our health services for both Covid-19 and non-Covid care, ensure our education and childcare facilities remain open, protect jobs and move the country to lower levels on the framework. With that in mind, I recognise the work of every member of this committee, on all sides, in fighting against this pandemic. I thank every member for everything they have done in the past eight months to support the country during what has been a very difficult time. I have no doubt that the members of the committee will continue with that work in the months to come.