David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Reid and his colleagues. I wish well those who are leaving us or changing roles. We do not want to announce something that has not been publicly announced yet but there are many rumours going around. If there are changes in people’s roles, the best of luck to everybody involved.

I wish to start with page 37 of the national service plan, which refers to maintaining an acute laboratory workforce and equipment to support the required testing capacity. My first question is on medical scientists. Mr. Reid has rightly stated over the course of recent months that medical scientists, as well as many front-line healthcare workers, went above and beyond the call of duty. In fact, he very much praised the systems designed and built to roll out testing capacity in this State. Obviously, medical scientists were part of that. They were working at the high end of it. Much pioneering work is being done, as I am sure Mr. Reid would acknowledge. Could he acknowledge that medical scientists played a critical role in testing and creating the architecture for Covid testing over the course of the pandemic?