David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I accept that, and Dr. Glynn has answered the question, but my point is we went from very good data and good numbers, or at least better numbers and having some handle on the virus and some control, to a situation where we lost control. If we do not learn lessons about why we lost control, we could lose control again.

With regard to public health intervention and the public health advice being given at present, there is a legitimate debate about whether we are doing enough about travel, for example, having mandatory quarantine for people coming into the State and onto the island. Is NPHET advising mandatory quarantine?

The secondary issue is that we have never got testing and tracing right. We have never used it to hunt down the virus effectively. Dr. Glynn said it will take some time to get to a point anywhere near where we were during the summer - that is because of mistakes that were made - and we hope the vaccination programme will help also. When we get to that point we will need to use testing and tracing very effectively. What more can be done in this area? Is NPHET advising the Government that we should have mandatory quarantine of people coming into the State and onto the island?