Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the witnesses for returning so soon. We have two realities here. We have the reality of what has been happening in this committee over the past two days with all the witnesses increasingly frustrated and understandably angry at the lack of progress and we have the reality of the Minister for Transport cycling to a Cabinet meeting today saying that he would love see airport testing take place. It is incredible. Based on everything we are hearing from witnesses, there is no urgency on the part of the Minister regarding this and he has not been taking the lead on this. This needs to be hammered home by this committee.

I thank our guest from Rome Airport for his wonderful presentation, which is a template for our Government. Our stakeholders are pushing this as hard this as possible. I have a few questions for Mr. Philips. There was a motion in 28 July 2020 in the Dáil regarding the proposed approval by Dáil Éireann of the Planning and Development Act 2000 (Exempted Development) (No. 3) Regulations 2020 concerning airport Covid temporary structures for passenger movement. That was brought in on 28 July. Can Mr. Philips speak to that? Does he have any visibility on that? I think he mentioned something to Deputy O'Connor.

There was no debate on it. It seems like there was some movement from the Department in terms of providing an exemption for temporary structures for Covid testing. That is the language used.