Ms Carolan Lennon:

They are doing an amazing job. Care in Eir is my responsibility. It is my fault that there is an issue; it is not the staff's fault. They are doing their absolute best in really tough circumstances. The field staff have been amazing. They wrote to me at the start and said keeping the networks up and not running out of capacity were a matter of national pride for them. They have done that. It is not just question of our network in that the capacity increases on all the Irish networks have generally stood up well. One can see the investment over the past five years paying off. The front-line guys, the care guys, hate the negative aspect. It is justified and I am not pushing back against it. Many of those concerned wrote to me last night and this morning to thank me for standing up for them in this regard, but we have to fix their problems. It is not their problem; it is my problem and I have to fix it.

We have an initiative on wellness. We are very conscious that people are at home on their own and that mental health issues may arise. We did something last week for International Men's Day with the Happy Pear guys. We are constantly sending out tips. We have an employee assistance programme that covers everything from medical supports to financial supports, in addition to counselling, if needed. We are constantly reminding people that the supports are available. We are setting up the webinars and we got as much flu vaccine as we could get. We did all these kinds of things so we are very conscious of looking after our staff. It is harder to do so at this time because we do not see them physically every day.