Intensive care doctors, nurses and staff are taking part in a cycle today and tomorrow to raise €100,000 for four major charities.

The ICU 4 U Charity Cycle will see teams of cyclists leave from their hospitals in Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Galway and Belfast and cycle to the Phoenix Park in Dublin.

The charities being supported are ALONE, AWARE, Breakthrough Cancer Research, and ICU Steps.

Dr Patrick Seigne, a Consultant Intensivist at Cork University Hospital, is the chief organiser of the cycle.

He told The Pat Kenny Show that while frontline ICU staff were called "heroes" at the outbreak of COVID-19, they felt they were "just doing their jobs".

Dr Patrick Seigne

He said: "That's what we're trained to do, that's what we're paid to do, albeit it was in strange times.

"We really wanted to change the focus from us back on to the patients themselves and their families because that's where the real tragedy was.

"We saw enough of the tragedy, maybe not quite to the extent it was in northern Italy or New York, but I saw enough to scare me.

"I saw quite a number of young people who were badly affected."

He said the upcoming National COVID Research and Scientific Meeting on Saturday will involve discussions by doctors on their reflections on the pandemic so far.

People can access the webinar by emailing rwilliams@coa.ie.