Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Testing of staff in nursing homes has been ongoing for the past two months and has proven very effective. As regards the meat factory the Deputy mentioned, I have two family members who have worked there for a very long time and they were tested last Thursday. There was a hullabaloo that there was no testing in meat factories last week, but in Dawn Meats in Grannagh over 800 people were tested last Thursday. We have to deal with the facts. The HSE is adding swabbing capacity in Dublin, Wicklow, Kildare, Louth and Galway. Pop-up testing centres remain in place in Limerick and Carlow and there is additional staffing and longer opening hours in many sites. We must remember that at the start of the pandemic, many front-line workers were redeployed to the test, trace and isolate service because the ordinary person did not understand it. People needed to have a medical background. We know so much more now and permanent people will be put in place. As the virus was suppressed and the curve was flattened, these medical people had to go back into the acute system to deliver non-Covid services.

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