Mr. Paul Reid:

This is something to which the HSE has given a lot of focus. We want to ensure that we get to very safe levels. I understand what the Deputy means when she refers to pre-pandemic. We have set out a total of nine criteria that we believe would bring us back to pre-pandemic safe levels. They are across three circulars set out by the chief clinical officer. We gauge and get feedback from the maternity hospitals about their compliance with those nine criteria. Our feedback is that, predominantly, all of them are compliant with them. There are exceptional cases where some maternity hospitals have had to have certain restrictions based on the significantly ageing infrastructure they have. In fairness, some of that would have been what was in place even pre-2019. We are very anxious and we recently met many of the patient advocate groups. We fully understand the frustration and hurt caused for women and their partners in terms of some of those visitations. We are anxious to resolve that to the greatest level possible. I will always qualify that by saying our clinicians, consultants and midwives have to take precautions for the protection of women and pregnant women.