Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 25 June 2020
Special Committee on Covid-19 Response
Covid-19: Testing and Tracing
Mr. Damien McCallion:
At the moment we are not in that position, but it is a challenge. It is inevitable that if we want to sustain capacity, whether private or public, we will have to pay some amount towards that. We are working with laboratories to minimise anything around that. It is not an issue at present, but it is something we are conscious of and we also have to be aware lab capacity will become a problem when there are surges, as Professor Mallon said, across Europe. We do not want to have to compete again with bigger players than ourselves in terms of trying to find capacity, reagents or supplies from big global companies. It is a challenge for private labs and our public laboratories.
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