I call Deputy Verona Murphy.

There is proposed legislation to introduce fines for breaches of restrictions the Government has put in place to deal with Covid-19, when in effect the biggest contributing factor is the Government's inability to set up an effective contact tracing model. In the face of assurances in May from the then Taoiseach and now Tánaiste, it was stated that the method of living with Covid would be to isolate, test, trace and treat. What is the plan for six weeks' time to ensure we can live with Covid-19? What legislation does the Government intend to bring forward to underpin that plan, and at what stage will the plan be laid before the House?

I discussed this earlier. Essentially, the plan is to build up a permanent workforce of contact tracers, close to 800, whose sole function will be contact tracing. In the intervening period, as of this week, the HSE said it has restructured its call system to make sure that its contact tracers can deal with 1,500 positive cases a day. On the swabbing side, 1,000 swabbers will be the permanent workforce in community swabbing, and there will be up to 800 in contact tracing. That is the plan. The HSE has been recruiting for quite some time to get the numbers up to that level, which is way in excess of what was there in the first phase. The testing is up to 115,000 now. The testing capacity is at 120,000. Community transmission is at a high level and was at a particularly high level over the weekend, which did put contact tracing under very significant strain, resulting in the measures that were taken.