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

Data are extremely important in terms of the entire experience of Covid-19 and learning from the first lockdown, which we did, and then informing the experiences of different phases of Covid. For example, coming out of the first phase when the country reopened and cases began to rise again during the August and September period, we brought in a team from the HSE, commissioning EY, to look at all of that detail with greater analytical tools and to identify where outbreaks happened and what was the correlation, what were the events and what were the combined circumstances that gave rise to spikes across the country. The Health Protection Surveillance Centre, HPSC, the HSE, the Department of Health, the Central Statistics Office and other Departments - the Deputy referenced the Department of Health - including the Departments of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, Social Protection and Justice, have all been inputting into the assessment and the impacts Covid has had on the different sectors of society. That will inform how we exit level 5. We are learning all of the time. We will publish those data and make them available to give people some understanding as to why we are arriving at particular decisions in respect of how we exit level 5. I have already identified some areas that have been of concern that emanated from those particular data. For example, in this phase we kept the schools and construction open. In the future, the Deputy can take it that we would do things differently from how we did them even during level 5 and from the first phase. We are learning all the time.

On mental health, there are two sources of figures on self-harm, the hospitals and clinical programmes. Hospitals could not report for a period of time due to Covid but reporting on statistics continued throughout Covid through the clinical programmes. I will qualify what I say here because we need more data and comprehensive research on this, but at the moment the data from the clinical programmes show that there is no evidence of an increase in self-harm as the figures are broadly similar to those for the same period last year. I put a caveat on that until I am satisfied that there is a full, comprehensive analysis of all the data.

With regard to suicides, there is a time lag as it has to be determined by the coroner. However, a real-time local study of suicide incidence in Cork shows no significant increase on the 2019 figures. Interestingly, a study on suicide in England found no evidence of a large national rise in post-lockdown suicide compared with previous lockdown suicides. It is an area that will continue to receive our attention.

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