Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Bassato for his presentation and I will follow up some of the questions asked. Professor Mark Ferguson was before the committee to speak to a review of antigen testing. For an aviation-type setting, and considering what has happened in other places, the proposal was for serial-type testing. It would almost be a case of people doing the test themselves and sending photographs over the ten or 14 days of the quarantine. Public health authorities in this State are pushing back against solutions such as this. Mr. Bassato mentioned a single antigen test. The idea of serial testing was to make up for the fact that antigen is not the gold standard. What do the Italian public health authorities think about this and have they signed off absolutely on this as an operation?

Like ourselves, I imagine the Italian authorities are looking into the DGC. What work has been done at Rome airport and in Italy in general on looking to participate when this is in operation? I assume there are set antigen tests that are used or not used. If positive antigen tests are subsequently found to be negative by PCR test, are those people free to enter and forgo quarantine?