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

This was agreed at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. All of this work is happening quickly.

The Chairman has outlined the situation regarding midnight tonight, green status and no restrictions. Currently, the test is validated in the member state. If someone is travelling from France, for example, its validated test is recognised by the health authorities in France. That will be deemed effective for people travelling to Ireland from midnight on Sunday, 8 November.

Regarding red status, the current position remains. People have to restrict their movements for 14 days.

The technical group will consider the situation every two weeks as testing comes on board. I would be as hopeful as the Chairman, but I cannot predict the future. I would love to be able to tell him that a certain test is going to be validated and that we will be ready to roll out more than just the PCR test, but I cannot do so today.