Dáil debates

Wednesday, 21 October 2020

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

 

12:10 pm

Photo of Micheál MartinMicheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I got a text last evening which included The Irish Timesarticle. That was when I first knew. I was not informed of the operational measure the HSE undertook in response to the extraordinary demands it was under over the weekend with community tracing. The HSE has reconfigured the call structure to deal with 1,500 positive cases per day this week. All the cases yesterday were dealt with. It has essentially reset the process so that it is managing all the contact tracing as and from yesterday again as per normal. They reconfigured the call structure to deal with 1,500 positive cases per day this week. It believes it should be able to get to everyone within 24 hours. Next week it will introduce the ability for a close contact to arrange their own test online and this will be a significant development. The Deputy will be aware of that development in enhanced technology which will speed up the process of contact tracing. That is important. It will have additional staff again next week.

The Deputy is correct in identifying that the pressure is on contact tracing and that is where the issue is. I have been pushing for a week-to-week acceleration of the recruitment process. There are many issues. Some people need to leave jobs to take up new jobs. There is the Garda vetting process of the new staff coming on board, which is going fast to be fair to it. My understanding is that Army personnel are still involved. They would have been more involved earlier in the year, but Army personnel are still involved in assisting with contact tracing.

I understand they have been very effective in the application and professionalism they bring to bear to the job. There would have been far more of them involved early in the first phase. The idea is to create a permanent workforce in contact tracing. Ultimately, that is the only way to deal with a pandemic of this sort, and that is provided for. There is no shortage of resources to enable this to happen, either financially or in any other way.

I accept that testing and tracing is very important to deal with the pandemic but it is not the primary shield. We are moving into level 5. We must reiterate the importance of our individual behaviours and collective behaviour in reducing our social contacts and physical distancing to stop the spread of the virus. That is extremely important. This is not to understate the centrality of test and trace as a key weapon in dealing with the pandemic into the future.

On the Deputy's point about regulation, is he suggesting that we set up a new agency to regulate the-----

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.