Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

During the initial lockdown, all testing stopped and it slowly opened up again over July and August. As I alluded to, the issue related to the health and safety protocols. The RSA is looking at rehiring temporary testers who had been laid off during the initial lockdown and bringing them on board. There is another cohort of temporary driver testers whose contracts will expire this month or next, and the RSA is looking at keeping them on and hiring further driving testers as well. It is important to say that because of the level 5 restrictions, the number of tests that can happen per day will be restricted. We are in a real dilemma here. I know people are concerned about trying to get tests but we are moving as fast as we can and trying to do it as safely as we can.