David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We need more capacity both in testing and tracing. On the testing side, we need to increase lab capacity. We can have more swabbers but if we end up with a bottleneck in the labs to do the testing, then we have a problem. With regard to tracing, the problem is the system collapsed for a couple of days and more than 1,900 patients, unfortunately, became contact tracers themselves. When the head of testing and tracing was before the health committee, she said that the metric used to ascertain how many tracers are actually needed in this State showed the figure is 800. However, on the day she was at the committee, and when we are in the middle of a second wave, she said we only had 581 tracers.

This proved the point that many of us had been making for some time, namely, that we wasted the summer months by not putting in that capacity. The temporary collapse of the tracing system was due to lack of capacity and that it became overwhelmed. The Minister should not waste the next number of weeks in the way the summer was wasted. He must ensure the numbers are brought up to the levels to which the Government committed.

See this speech in context