Professor Paddy Mallon:

I have two points. First, the public should be warned against doing any test that is not officially validated. For example, the public may undertake an antibody test that would take 20 minutes but it really tells us very little when they think they are getting the reassurance of a point-of-care nucleic acid test. We really need to put the message out there that people need to get tested through the official channels so they are tested right.

As I have said previously, we need to be very careful in terms of allowing people from the outside into the country. If we allow unrestricted movement of people from any area of the world, whether it is the United States, South America or parts of eastern Europe or Asia where there is uncontrolled community transmission, we will be making trouble for ourselves.