Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. Meat plants, as we all know, are at high risk of becoming clusters. There are many reasons for that but we know that is the case in Ireland and around the world. We have known that for a long time and that is precisely why there are specific protocols in place in relation to meat plants. That is why there is a joint committee on it and why surveillance testing happens in meat plants. Even though the positivity rate is very low, it is still down as a precaution, as it is in nursing homes and some other places. While it was suspended last week when there was a huge increase in demand for testing, it resumed last Monday.

The decision to close any meat plant or any business is made by public health officials or by the Health and Safety Authority, HSA, as appropriate. If a plant needs to close, it should close and there is no message, directive, policy or anything from Government saying to our public officials or to the HSA that plants should not be closed if they need to be. I want to make that clear. If public health doctors and officials dealing with the cluster believe a place has an outbreak and should be closed, the Government supports any decision to close a business, meat plant, school or anything else if that is the right thing to do in public health terms.

I hope that is abundantly clear. Regarding details on clusters, the public health authorities, NPHET and the HSE, should be as transparent as possible in putting out details of where clusters are located. It is also important, however, that we are careful about what we mean by that. A cluster can be two cases or it can be two cases connected, and most clusters are in fact households. We must also bear in mind that a cluster stays open until 28 days after there has been no case. When issuing public information about clusters, therefore, we need to do so in a way that does not end up stigmatising people or with a situation where individuals or individual households can be identified. It has always been the case in Ireland, and this is a good thing, that our healthcare information is private, and that if people have particular illnesses, infections or a particular type of cancer, for example, only those people concerned should be telling other people about the situation. It should not be put on a Government website, so we need to be careful when it comes to such information and how it is disclosed.

This week we passed an important milestone, with 1 million tests for Covid-19 having been carried out in this country. I express my thanks to all our health service and laboratory staff for making that possible. Contrary to what we might hear elsewhere, the amount of testing that we are doing is reasonably high on a per capitabasis. It is higher than in countries such as Germany and New Zealand, which are often held up as examples to follow, and higher than in Sweden, which is also put forward by others from a different perspective as an example to follow. This amount of testing being carried out should be recognised for what it is, and I again express my thanks to our health service and laboratory staff for making this possible.

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