The Deputy has opposed every single thing.

Stop shouting, please.

I do not think that is the basis on which I should respond.

I would like to make a final point, if I may. We all enjoy, and engage in, the cut and thrust of parliamentary debate. There was nothing untoward or unparliamentary in what I said. I made a debating point and it was an important point from a policy perspective.

People say things about me and I accept them in the full spirit in which they are given in parliamentary exchange and debate. What I said was not a slur, smear or aspersion on anybody's character. My comment was about policy. I was speaking to the policy of this issue.

I do not think the Deputy's overly melodramatic response is sincere.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, together. My Department continues to play a central role in co-ordinating the State's response to the Covid-19 pandemic. To date this work has been carried out from within my existing staff cohort, although this has involved significant reallocation and re-prioritisation of work within the Department. This work is co-ordinated through the Cabinet committee on Covid-19 and the associated senior officials' group established to assess the social and economic impacts …

We have answered that question.

To start with Deputy Kelly's questions, the Department of the Taoiseach has not brought in additional staff to deal with Covid-19, as I stated in my reply. It has reprioritised and reallocated work within the Department, as senior members of the Department have been dealing with it on a consistent basis since the outbreak of the pandemic early in the year. The judgment call was that it was better to have senior members of the Department and officials dealing with this matter rather than recruiting freshly into the …

I last reported to the House on this matter on 23 September 2020 and since then I have continued to be in regular contact with First Minister Arlene Foster and deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill. I spoke to the First Minister and deputy First Minister on the evening of Friday, 16 October, when we discussed the evolving Covid-19 position. Prior to that I had a videoconference with the First Minister and deputy First Minister on Monday, 5 October. I had a phone call with the First Minister on Thursday, 8 October,…

I should have included the North-South Ministerial Council and my visit to the North on two occasions when I formally met with the First Minister and deputy First Minister.

I reject the assertions made by Deputy Tóibín. They are simply wrong and overly simplistic. There has been very regular contact at multiple levels. That is the way it has to be. I am engaged with the First Minister and the deputy First Minister. At the first North-South Ministerial Council in three and a half years, which was due to the Executive being collapsed, an assembly was held on 31 July. We brought the two Chief Medical Officers along to that, the Northern Ireland CMO and our acting Chief Medical Officer, D…

I would kind of agree with the Ceann Comhairle there.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 5 to 8, inclusive, together. I last reported to the House on this matter on 20 September. Since then I have maintained contact with Prime Minister Johnson. I spoke with the Prime Minister on 8 October when we discussed latest developments around Covid-19 and in particular the situation in Northern Ireland, when I supported the cases for additional financial supports to underpin additional restrictions being contemplated at that time by the Northern Ireland Executive. Prime Minister …

As regards Deputy Paul Murphy's question, Irish migration authorities operate within their own set of policy parameters and within the legal framework that has been laid down by the Oireachtas. That will remain the position. I will follow up on the specific assertions the Deputy makes, but the work and role of Irish officials in relation to migration policy generally is certainly not as he has portrayed it. Deputy Boyd Barrett raised issues about the all-island approach to Covid-19. The most recent announcements by…

I thank Deputy McDonald for her remarks and for raising this issue. Since the new Government was formed and came into office at the end of June, we have been determined to build up our testing and tracing capacity. That is what has happened. Without question, the contact tracing dimension has come under extreme pressure in recent days, in particular over the weekend. I recall the Deputy asking some weeks ago about the target of 100,000 tests per week. We have now reached a testing capacity of 120,000 in our laborat…

I outlined the very significant increase in capacity in testing to put it on the record of the House and it needs to be acknowledged. Things need to be viewed with balance and perspective. I am not happy and I am disappointed that because of the extraordinary demand over the weekend given the level of community transmission we currently have, there is not a test-and-tracing system in the world that will not come under pressure, and they are. I have just listened to colleagues of Deputy McDonald's. A similar situati…

I got a text last evening which included The Irish Times article. 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. Th…

We have a lot of agencies and we are recruiting a lot of people.

It is a very fast-moving situation with a pandemic. For example, Deputy Kelly made a valid point on antigen testing.