Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. The initial plan was to bring in randomised or voluntary testing at airports. There are mixed views, and I will defer to the experts that are here as to the efficacy of mass airport testing. The Deputy is completely correct in that some countries are doing it. Others are not. NPHET's view at present is that it would not be the highest priority in terms of the deployment of our testing capacity. However, I refer the Deputy to a major event or progress happening in foreign travel in that, as I am sure he is aware, we have agreed to move towards the European Commission's system for the EU, which, essentially, will be a traffic lights system. The final proposal from the Commission is still being worked through and we will need to progress towards it. If and when we fully adopt what is proposed, it would see a liberalisation in foreign travel because there would be travel for both green and orange countries. The current Commission proposal for orange countries is that they would require some potential combination of e-locator forms, pre-tests-----