I plead with the Taoiseach to open up visits for family members to patients in hospitals.

They need family members for personal care and to advocate for them. Patients will only confide in their own. Old people are lonely and this is the one thing that happened with the virus. Many of these people died alone. They miss their family members after working hard all their lives. Everything else has opened up and that is fine. This is inhumane. It can be done safely.

I offer my heartfelt sympathy to the family of Pádraig Clifford from Milltown who died last night leaving four children behind. His wife, Elaine, died four months ago. The four children are now on their own. I offer my heartfelt sympathy to the Harrington and Clifford families who are in total shock at this time.

I join the Deputy in offering sympathy to the Harrington and Clifford families on their loss. With regard to the ongoing nursing home restrictions, the HSE AMRIC, the antimicrobial resistance and infection control, provides extensive guidance on the control of the risk of the spread of Covid-19 in healthcare settings, including extensive guidance on normalising visiting in long-term residential care facilities. Healthcare settings are different from other contexts in which people gather for work or social interaction. People with infectious Covid-19 in need of healthcare may need to attend healthcare settings, introducing a risk of infection. Many of those most vulnerable to the consequences of Covid-19 infection are also present in healthcare settings. For this reason a greater degree of caution is required in healthcare settings compared with other settings. There are more than 213 open outbreaks in nursing homes at present, with 49 new outbreaks notified in the past week. This underlines the need for continued vigilance in these settings.