David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have some brief questions. Who is preparing the RIA? Is it somebody in the HSA?

I want to go back to the point I made on what the HSA said, namely, that there is no counter-obligation on employees to provide detailed confidential medical information to their employer. Congress officials seemed to contradict that and have said there is. If the HSA is correct, an employee could be in the workforce with Covid. As Deputy Duffy said, he or she might not want to tell people he or she has it and could be spreading it.

I would like to get to the bottom of an important matter, namely, whether there is a legal obligation on employees to tell an employer or their colleagues that they have Covid. The HSA might say a bit more about the GDPR implications in that regard.

Something struck me. The reports from CIDR and the HPSC are issued weekly. Is that a long period before information is received? We get daily reports from the Department and others. The HSA receives information on a weekly basis, but an awful lot can happen in a week.

As far as the HPSC reporting is concerned, can Dr. McGuinness tell me exactly how a workplace is identified? Are those data captured initially from the person who presents to a doctor and then has a positive Covid test? Does the workplace information state that a person works in a particular workplace? Is the information passed on at that stage?