An assistant professor in nursing at UCD has said issues around sex and the coronavirus should have been discussed a lot sooner.
It comes as many public STI services are not operating due to the pandemic.
John Gilmore told Lunchtime Live people continued to have sex during the COVID-19 surge.
"It's a conversation that we should have been having a lot earlier - it's information that the HSE should have been producing.
"It was interesting when we were looking at originally the roadmap for re-opening society and businesses sex was mentioned exactly zero times within that."
"We know that people have been having sex, people have been having sex with their regular partners."
"I think many jurisdictions came out with this type of information well in advance.
"And in Ireland, many organisations... were producing information and I think that's really good.
"And I think it's great to see the HSE now coming in and acknowledging that people are having sex.
"But I suppose my concern is, on the other hand, we went through a surge in COVID, I like many other health professionals were back in the frontline, I was in ICU, I was hoping people weren't having very much sex outside their household at that time.
"But as things improved we saw numbers go down - but what we didn't see happen is the re-opening of sexual health services.
"We're seeing now at a time when - the HSE's acknowledging, lots of people are having sex - our sexual health services, while they are opening slowly, we're still not at capacity.
"While we're seeing a reduction in figures around STIs - they're down about a quarter on what they were last year - but that's test results, and we're not testing the same amount of people."
On unclear advice on the topic from NPHET, he said: "We know that healthcare professionals are uncomfortable speaking about sex.
"It's something I bring into my teaching with student nurses and midwives: being very open and frank discussions.
"We know also from research that if people have concerns around their sexual health or well-being, they often don't feel comfortable bringing it up and rely on the healthcare professional to bring it up.
"So it's really important we have these discussions and we are having frank discussions.
"And if you want to have phone sex or cam sex and all the rest, you need to know about the information of how to do it safely.
"An organisation like SpunOut has some great information around that.
"But not everybody wants to have that type of sex, other people rely on the physical contact.
"And we know as well sex is good for you - there's clear and empirical evidence that having sex is good for your health and well-being.
"But there obviously are risks involved.
"What we really need is the infrastructure to ensure that where those risks are there, that people can engage in protecting themselves as much as possible.
"Lots of young people know this information, they're actually probably much more well adapted... whereas maybe older people may not be aware, people who want to protect themselves and may be are cocooning but still have sexual desires may not be aware of the risks in a clear way."
