Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have 930 staff in place. I do not know who is working or the exact hours involved but I can confirm the part in which we are interested, namely, whether contact tracing capacity is operating to its full potential 12 hours per day, seven days per week. The answer to that question is "Yes". We do quite in-depth contact tracing compared with many other countries. We do contact tracing with various protocols, with a full list of phone calls and following up on the close contacts. It is a level that many other countries do not do but we have found it very useful in identifying local outbreaks before public health teams go in. The Deputy will be aware, for example, of the serious recent outbreak in Dungarvan, which is not far from her constituency. The outbreak was identified and contact tracing was done before public health teams went in and engaged with people. I am thankful that in Ireland we have had a fantastic response from the public, members of which isolate in order to protect themselves and everybody else. As a result, outbreaks like it are being contained all the time.

See this speech in context