Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are a few parts to them. I thank the Deputy for the questions. Regarding testing, tracing and public health surveillance, that will be a major part of the easing of restrictions at whatever point that happens. However, it will not be the sole factor. Restrictions are not in place in Ireland today because we do not have the public health surveillance in place, but because the virus is not where it needs to be. The document published by European Commission President von der Leyen outlines the criteria that must be in place before the easing of restrictions. Public health surveillance, testing and tracing is one of three items. The others are capacity and the behaviour of the virus. However, the Deputy is correct. The HSE tells us it has capacity to undertake approximately 10,000 tests per day. This is in laboratories in hospitals and in the community, including the NVRL, Enfer, smaller laboratories and some international provision. The HSE is due to give an update to the NPHET at its meeting tomorrow regarding how it will achieve the roadmap, as it were, to the 100,000 tests per week that the NPHET believes is necessary. When the Deputy says we are far from it in terms of the number of tests being done today, it is important to point out that with the case definition as of now, there is not the demand for that today, but there will be a broadening of the case definition in the coming days. We are using the extra supplies now to prioritise the nursing home sector.

The Deputy asked if I can guarantee that this will be available into the future. Only an idiot would do that. The best government and public health service in the world cannot give cast-iron guarantees in respect of all the moving parts, be it reagent, supplies or laboratories. The HSE has said it can do 10,000 tests per day in terms of capacity and it has secured a significant amount of additional reagent. It has built up a very good system. It has put a senior manager in place to deal with end-to-end testing, including the contact tracing. I am confident it is moving into a very good place.

Regarding to nursing homes, in the time available I do not want to get into that debate other than to say I am saying a great deal more than mea culpa. I did not bring in the privatisation agenda for nursing homes and I agreed the Sláintecare plan with the Deputy, which moves us to a very different direction. It is important to say mea culpawhen one gets things wrong, but some of the tragedy we have seen in loss of life has been in our public health facilities as well and we must acknowledge that. We have seen a significant mortality rate in a number of HSE facilities as well.

As regards PPE, we are providing PPE to more than 200 nursing homes. We are delivering 2,500 to 3,000 cartons and pallets each week to residential units, in excess of 1 million pieces of personal protective equipment, including hand sanitiser gel, gloves, goggles, face shields, gowns, aprons and face masks. On Friday, 17 April alone, 378 deliveries were made to nursing homes, providing 750,000 items. The Deputy is correct that there is a shared responsibility. If one runs a private health facility, one has a responsibility for the safety of one's staff, just as one has in every organisation. We are trying to supplement that, not replace it.

Regarding home care, we made a decision that home care providers have parity of access to PPE with nursing homes. If there is any confusion in terms of who they contact, I will take that up. We are not differentiating in this regard. If there is an issue with PPE, we are not differentiating between public or private. We are trying to protect the citizen. I will follow up on that directly with the Deputy.

The Deputy referred to overseas workers coming into Ireland. I would make the point even more broadly. We must tighten up further with regard to anybody coming into or back to our country. This will become even more important as we arrive at a point where we begin to ease restrictions. The Deputy is correct that currently we ask people to self-isolate, but that is not checked. The NPHET has made a number of recommendations to the Cabinet committee and I expect to be able to announce them shortly. We have to consult a few more key stakeholders. What it must involve is a person at the airport being required to fill out a form saying where he or she intends to stay for that period of time and that being checked. We need to put that mechanism in place. While there is not a significant volume of people coming into the country now, we must be sure that we are not in a position where we are all following best practice here and people coming in from abroad are following a different one. I expect an announcement on the further tightening of restrictions at the airports and more than just taking somebody at his or her word that he or she is following the isolation restrictions.

On the question of whether the State must provide accommodation, quite frankly, the answer is "Yes" if a person is not in a position to self-isolate. We believe that many people will be able to self-isolate. However, a person must tell us where he or she is self-isolating and we need to be in a position to check that.

On private hospital costs, I will get the breakdown of figures sought by Deputy Shortall.

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