Professor Paddy Mallon:

I think it is inevitable that we will see restrictions being brought in. The Deputy talks about mass lockdown. The inevitability of a mass lockdown depends on what happens with the new cases. One could argue that, within Ireland, if we set up the testing and contact tracing system appropriately, we could place restrictions locally, as they are doing in the state of Victoria and in Germany. However, if we get a large number of people returning to the country from overseas and there is wide geographical spread of community transmission, and we cannot test and contact trace efficiently, the only way we are going to control that is by returning to mass lockdown.