Mr. Paul Reid:

I thank the Deputy. It is a really prominent point to make. In terms of the HSE experience following on from the understandable period where we had to shut down non-urgent care services, on the restart of services we were seeing concerning issues emerging from overall treatment and services, but particularly from people with stress, anxiety and mental health issues across all age groups, including young people and some elderly people as well. That is a cause of concern for us in the HSE. It is probably the reason that I am always very strong and clear in saying, from a HSE health perspective lockdowns or severe restrictions are bad for the health service. That is a call to arms to everybody so that we do not let that happen. They are not good for the health service. Lockdown was not good in the first phase and what we are seeing now does give us cause for concern.

We need society to be open and the economy to be functioning because the impacts on the health service are significant.