Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Niamh Smyth for her congratulations. I assure her that the work rate has not diminished since we were in opposition. It is fair to say that it has increased substantially.

I thank the Deputy for her question on the Border counties. This is a profoundly important matter. It affects the Border counties most severely but it is a question for the whole island. There is absolute agreement that the best approach is an all-island approach, because this disease does not care a damn whether it is north or south of the Border. No Border controls will be put in place so there will be free movement of people all around the island, as is right and proper. That will continue.

What is the Government doing? I have spoken at length with my counterpart in Northern Ireland, the Minister of Health, Robin Swann, MLA. The deputy chief medical officer is in regular contact with his counterpart and was talking with him at length this morning. Many of these issues will be discussed at a meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council in Dublin Castle a week from today. The members of the HSE team that developed the app have been in communication with their counterparts in Northern Ireland. The app has been designed to be deployed as an all-island app. It is quite rightly up to the Northern Ireland Assembly to decide if and when to deploy it. I hope to see it deployed throughout the island, and if possible adopted by many more countries, to allow a very tight contact linkage. There might be different versions, but I hope there will essentially be a single app with very tight contact tracing. The response in this area and in many others should be aligned as tightly as possible across the island. That is to everybody's benefit. There are obviously complications but that is what we are working towards.

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