Professor Cillian Twomey:

We must bear in mind that we are talking about February. I suspect not everybody who was transferred in February was tested because the facilities for testing were not only not adequately available for the particular requirement the Deputy outlined but, similarly, they were not available globally or nationally. I suspect there were transfers in the early part of that process, in February, in particular, where testing was not universally done but I can tell the Deputy now that it is done in every case. Not only that, when somebody is transferred now from the acute sector to a residential care facility, he or she is quarantined for a period of 14 days so that, test or no test, such people are kept apart from the other residents for that period of time.

I know the committee has heard repeatedly that, inevitably, there has been a significant learning curve about this pandemic because it was new to all of us at the beginning of this year. There is no question that our systems evolved more efficiently as time went on. We were asked by the Minister what needs to be done to ensure, should there be another surge, that the sort of delays that occurred earlier in the process, in February in particular, would not recur. I believe our recommendations, if implemented, will ensure that they do not.