I wish to ask the Tánaiste for more detail about the Plan for Living with Covid-19 roadmap. In particular, what specific metrics will be used by Government and the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, to indicate when it is safe to exit level 5 of the restrictions? For instance, will it be on the reproductive number falling below a certain level or the number of daily cases, or other metrics dealing with the positivity rate, including hospitalisations or availability of ICU beds?

I am sure the Tánaiste is aware through his Department of the need to manage expectations of businesses. The same applies to the public as well as the tourism sector and sporting organisations that legitimately want to understand where the country stands. I feel specific metrics from a robust, risk-based scientific approach need to be applied to each of the levels within the Plan for Living with Covid-19 roadmap. Therefore, I would appreciate if the Tánaiste could provide clarity about the plan from exiting level 5 and what sort of metrics need to be achieved over the next six weeks.

The Plan for Living with Covid-19 sets out the metrics we use to determine whether we can ease restrictions and go down a level or increase restrictions and go up a level. It includes deaths and five-day and seven-day average cases, the number of ICU beds available, hospitalisations and, of course, crucially, the trajectory. Is it getting better or worse, and if so, how fast? We have generally avoided specific or exact numbers because it confines decision-making. As the Deputy will appreciate, the number of cases detected every day might depend on the number of tests that are done and the positivity rate might depend, for example, on how much serial testing is being done from nursing homes. Therefore, we did not want to put in exact numbers but they are the kind of criteria. It is without doubt that cases are falling at the moment but, unfortunately, they are not falling enough. It is still at around 2,000 cases per day, which is high. Our ICUs are full and our hospitals are pretty full too, so there will be another few weeks left at the current level of restrictions.