I will do my very best, a Cheann Comhairle. In regard to care homes - the nursing homes and long-term care residential facilities - it is important to acknowledge that they are homes. These are people's residences. It is where they live. It is not the same as an acute hospital, for example, but there are standards and it is a highly regulated sector. The regulator is the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, which carries out regular inspections and produces regular reports on how care and standards can b…

I wish to endorse the Deputy's comments about the need to protect the health and mental health of our HSE staff. The points he made were very relevant and well made. They are issues I bear in mind every day, knowing so many people who work in our health service at the moment and knowing the pressures they are under. Many of us will have been following the debate around the wearing of face masks. There is no dispute that people who have symptoms or are sneezing or coughing should wear a mask in order to reduce the c…

That is a good suggestion. It is something we will need to address appropriately and at the right time. We will recognise all of those who have died as a consequence of Covid-19, but particularly those who worked in healthcare and put themselves at risk in the way that such workers do every day. There are death-in-service arrangements in place for healthcare staff who pass away as a result of coronavirus and I have asked the chief executive officer of the HSE to review those arrangements and see if there is any way…

There were pertinent questions there and it will be impossible for me to answer them all in two minutes. It always takes less time to ask a question than to answer it properly. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, might come back to Deputy Kelly on the questions about banks and insurance companies.

I will do my best to answer as many of Deputy Kelly's questions as I can. The Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, has informed me that he intends to lay the agreement with the private hospitals before the Dáil. I am not sure when he will be able to do that but that is his intention. On testing, Deputy Shortall said there should be engagement at the highest level of government with the big companies. That has happened and is ongoing. I spent a decent amount of my time over the past couple of days and weeks ringing C…

I am not sure of exactly what I said but if I was off-beat or inappropriate-----

-----I do apologise. I am happy to clarify. I believe I said there is a large amount of some items available but that there is a shortage of other items, such as gowns. It is not just a case of having supplies in the HSE's warehouses; they must also be distributed to all the different centres and people and then replenished because, obviously, people use them. Systems need to be in place not only to order supplies and to get them into the warehouse, but also to get it to 3,000 to 4,000 sites around the country. Tho…

-----the availability of testing kits and systems in which to get people their results. There may be a change in the next few weeks, for example, whereby an antibody test may become available. While no effective antibody test is available at the moment, it may become available next month or the month after - nobody knows for sure - and that would move from a swab test to a blood test. Circumstances are changing dynamically all the time, and what was an issue a day or two ago might not be an issue today but may beco…

I would welcome a written proposal as to how that would work.

If I could answer that question in terms of structures, we already have a lot of structures and they are operating effectively. We have the National Public Health Emergency Team, there is an expert advisory group, and we have a Cabinet sub-committee, which has access to expertise. Of course I am willing to consider any proposal for an additional structure or task force, but I would have to understand exactly what it is, how it would work and who would be on it. I am very open to considering that but would need to s…

I did not have time to jot down all the Deputy's questions so I ask him to repeat them if I miss any. I absolutely agree that the coronavirus is a national emergency. The Government declared the emergency some time ago, and that emergency exists not just in nursing homes and care homes but also in hospitals and the community. It is a health emergency and an economic emergency, and it could yet become a fiscal emergency. I do not believe, however, that the emergency is confined to nursing homes. It is a wider emerge…

I cannot give the Deputy a straight answer to that because I do not know if that is correct. I would have to check the HSE guidelines. I am not sure if that assertion is factually true. It may be correct but I would have to check as to whether it was left to nursing homes to provide their own PPE. My understanding is that the HSE has been providing PPE to private nursing homes. It is my understanding that there are regulations around staffing schedules; they are HIQA regulations, not HSE ones. I would honestly have…

That is an estimate so it is as accurate as any estimate can be, if that answers the Deputy's question. It may be right or it may be wrong. It is an accurate estimate but it is not necessarily what the actual cost will be because we will not know that until the end, when the costs are calculated. The agreement made between the HSE and the Private Hospitals Association was that this would be done on a not-for-profit basis; the agreement is for the covering of the costs of the private hospitals.

The answer to the question on Apple is No. It is a very disingenuous question and solution. The truth is that whether the State withdraws its appeal or not is irrelevant because Apple is appealing the judgment as well. This will continue to be a matter for the courts for many years, no matter what the Government does. The money has been collected but it is in an escrow account controlled by the Bank of New York Mellon. No Government of any colour or any party, led by anyone would have access to that escrow account …

I will have to revert to the Deputy with the details on that but my understanding is that somebody who works for Ernst & Young has been retained by the HSE. I forget her name but she has been retained by the HSE as a project manager. The view of the CEO of the HSE, Mr. Paul Reid, was that we were asking the scientists and the lab managers to do too much. We were asking the same person, Dr. Cillian De Gascun, a great man who runs the National Virus Reference Laboratory, NVRL, also to project-manage the ramping up of…

Deputy Grealish referred to people over 66 years who have lost their jobs. They can be included in the wage subsidy scheme. We encourage their employers to keep them on under the wage subsidy scheme. However, they cannot receive the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, which is an individualised payment. If one examines some of the individual cases - I have examined some, although certainly not all of them - one finds people over 66 years are generally in receipt of a State pension and often in receipt of a State pe…

Deputy Mattie McGrath speaks quicker than I can write. I think I managed to jot down most of his questions. On Lebanon, given the unprecedented nature of the Covid-19 crisis and to mitigate its transmission, the UN Secretary General in recent days advised all troop contributors and mission commanders of his plans to suspend all rotations and leave for military personnel serving in UN missions until 30 June. The direction will impact over 100,000 uniformed UN personnel from more than 120 countries serving worldwide.…

On a point of order, we were supposed to keep this debate under two hours because of the public health advice and I think we are well over that now.

I just think we should take our own public health advice.

I move: "That Second Stage be taken now."