Deputy Connolly and I are going to disagree on the nursing home issue, as is her right. I would make the point that we are recording, testing and getting an understanding that I do not believe many other countries have. When we get into the Covid committee, but also when we get past the pandemic, no doubt there will be lessons to be learned in regard to this pandemic. No country is perfect. However, while I am happy to learn the lessons, I believe we should learn them from listening to those like HIQA, the regulato…

Certainly, in the Government plan, the criteria that I now report against talk about how we "protect" and "shield". The short answer is that I am going to be conscious not to use it, as the Deputy requests. In regard to direct provision, guidance was drawn up by the HPSC and a group was set up specifically on vulnerable users, including those in direct provision. The advice is very clear.

I cannot say what the Deputy does or does not read, and I do not mean that in a rude way. I know a significant body of work was done by the HPSC in drawing up and publishing guidance and we know there has been a lot of work by the Department of Justice and Equality in that regard. My Department gives out the guidance. On private hospitals, I will send the table I have with me to the Deputy. We are meant to have, and are purposely choosing to have, some vacant capacity for a potential second wave.

Yes, I would like to. The Deputy is right that the Houses passed legislation on 26 March giving me the ability to set regulations. He also knows that same legislation refers to what I need to take into consideration when setting regulations, which is obviously the public health advice I am given, which came after that. In fairness, on that issue, the Deputy will see we moved quite swiftly on regulating once we had the measures to put-----

That may be but-----

That is fine but I just want to point out there was no delay on that. With regard to airport restrictions, we are going to regulate in this area, but I also believe it will require the input of a number of Departments. The Departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Justice and Equality, Transport, Tourism and Sport, and Health have met on this matter with the Attorney General. The Deputy is right that at the moment self-isolation in Ireland is something people are doing voluntarily. I believe the overwhelming majori…

It is because the Government has decided, based on public health advice, that we would introduce it on a phased basis. Any time anybody goes into somebody else's house there is a risk of transmitting the virus. We are trying to minimise that spread. We are starting with front-line healthcare workers, but as the Deputy will see in the plan, we intend to expand childcare schemes further as we go through the plan. I take the point the Deputy has made about An Garda Síochána. We are starting with front-line healthcare …

I welcome this opportunity to update the House once again on the Covid-19 disease and our national response to it. I will begin by providing an update on our modelling work. I am pleased to say that the R number, which we have been talking about for several weeks, has remained stable at 0.5 to 0.8. That is quite an achievement by the people of this country. By now, Deputies know what this means but it is important to reflect on its impact on people and their lives. When the Taoiseach announced a series of restricti…

I thank the Deputy for raising these two important matters, which are both linked to the provision of non-Covid-19 healthcare. He has hit the nail on the head on a very important issue. In this country as in many others we have all been preparing for the pandemic to take a certain course of action: to come, to reach a very high peak with huge human consequences in terms of deaths and very serious illness and then hopefully to begin a downward trajectory. Thanks to the efforts of the Irish people we have not seen th…

I will send a written note on the last one. I imagine it might come up in conversations here anyway.

On the issue of home care workers' PPE and nursing home workers' PPE, over the past seven days, from 23 April to 29 April, 6.63 million items of PPE have been delivered across the health service. Some 54% of this volume was delivered to community residential facilities in 1,767 individual deliveries. As for the full distribution, 54%, as I said, went there and 8% went to home care. I had a very good meeting yesterday with Home and Community Care Ireland, HCCI, which represents many home care providers across the co…

I have approximately three minutes. The Deputy raised a number of matters and I will write to her about some of them in the interests of time, as she has asked me to. The number of staff redeployed to nursing homes moves up and down and I saw a number of over 200. The number was 61 last week but I will send the Deputy the figures broken down by community healthcare organisation. I do not want to build expectation around this but I had a very good meeting on home care and I hope that piece will really help. Much wor…

I am conscious that people at home watch these proceedings and hear the questions that are put but do not have access to written replies I send to Deputies. We must divide the allocated time better. I came here to answer questions. If I do not know the answer to a question, I will revert to the Deputy in writing, but I need some time to answer the questions orally.

I ask that the allocated time be divided properly. Deputy Ward raised the issue of Jigsaw. I am due to meet its representatives on Thursday and I will revert to the Deputy thereafter. Mental health, particularly youth mental health, is a key priority. We wish to support Jigsaw in what it is doing. Deputy Paul Donnelly is correct in the context of ASD. The reality is that many children have been out of school and may not have been able to access normal health supports. We need to consider what an intervention for th…

Staffing is a major issue. I know Deputy Heydon has raised this with me. There are four ways we are trying to assist nursing homes: through the direct redeployment of HSE staff; an agreement reached in recent days with home care providers to allow home care staff to be redeployed; to ensure a faster turnaround time for testing for staff and a priority for that so that the many staff who do not have Covid-19 can get the all clear and go back into the workplace; and the funding scheme that the Deputy referred to. I a…

I am pleased we are in a position in the Dáil where Deputies can ask when we can recommence elective work because if one looks at the modelling, as of today, had we not lowered the reproductive rate for this virus from just over 2.0 to where it is now, we would have seen 2,200 people in our ICUs today and would be in a very dire situation. That is not to take away from the very difficult and sad situation of the 103 people in our ICUs today and the worry that their families have for their well-being. We think of th…

I would like to follow up the issue of any questions not being answered with the Deputy directly. I assure him that this is not the case. The Taoiseach and I met his party leader yesterday for two hours, as we generally do once a week. We also have the HSE briefing, two hours of questions and statements in this House, and a daily press conference with the Chief Medical Officer to update the public, but I am very eager that the information flows. I said I would try to sort out the matter of the student radiographers…

I thank the Deputy. I agree with his views about transparency and NPHET. Minutes of meetings are kept and published. NPHET makes recommendations, but I remain the decision maker on Government policy and am accountable to this House, to be clear. I have not gone against any of the recommendations from NPHET, nor do I intend to, because I am taking a public health-led approach to this, but NPHET is not a mysterious object. It pulls together the best expertise from HIQA, the Health Products Regulatory Authority, HPRA,…

The public have put in an extraordinary effort, but those in the HSE have done so as well. I have watched them move mountains to try to robustly put in place a testing process from something that did not exist previously, and they have done a very good job. We all share the frustration and we want to be further on than we are - I agree absolutely. Yet, when we look at the international comparisons, we see a number of countries are lifting restrictions but have done fewer tests than we have. According to our world d…

I must check where the review is because I know it was ready to go to Cabinet.