Mr. Phelim Quinn:

I thank the Deputy for her questions. I will take the question about the cessation of inspections in the first instance. As Ms Dunnion said, that decision was taken in line with public health advice. It is a well established practice that inspectors do not go into homes where there are specific outbreaks. Certainly we were learning. One of the places we were learning from was our fellow regulatory bodies throughout these islands and Europe. We are part of a forum and we stayed very close to the sorts of practices that regulators were undertaking within those jurisdictions. My colleagues would be happy to detail the significant level of supports, advice and contact that we maintained throughout the early days of the pandemic and since.

As an organisation, in those early days of the pandemic, we engaged in a significant range of other activities in support of the national effort. That included the development of evidence summaries and evidence synthesis for the NPHET, of which HIQA is a member; the development of guidance; the transfer of staff to the HPSC, which had experience in surveillance science and guideline development; and the development of online infection prevention control tools published recently. We have seen an uptake of approximately 4,800 contacts with that particular training tool in the past two weeks.

There has been a significant level of intervention and supports to the national effort. I will ask my colleague, Ms Dunnion, to answer the remainder of the Deputy's questions.