Mr. Joe Ryan:

For some of this, I will be able to give responses, and I will ask my colleague Ms McDaid to come in on some of the other answers, if that is okay. Deputy McGrath asked why the hospital was suitable during Covid. During the Covid pandemic, as he will be aware, we had to make provision for spaces to accommodate people to step down out of our hospitals in anticipation that we were going to be overrun. As it happened, that did not manifest itself. It took us several months into the pandemic to appreciate fully that that was not going to happen, to some extent through the good work of colleagues but also due to good fortune that we did not have to do that.

The staff related to that were redeployed. It was not that we did not have good HR practices, as Senator Craughwell suggested, but that we needed every pair of hands we could get to help with vaccination and testing in a vast programme of work throughout the nation, as I am sure he will appreciate.

On the broader question of receiving documentation and requests for that, I will take that very much on board and examine all the requests made by the committee. I will go back with colleagues and have a look again at our responses to the committee. I am making that commitment to the Cathaoirleach as a director in the HSE.