Mr. Barry O'Brien:

I will deal with the question on costs. Obviously, this is an issue that is very commercially sensitive and subject to negotiations. I can tell the committee that the cost of the construction of the technology has been largely funded outside Ireland. We have a unique opportunity now to bring that technology here. As I said, a lot of the cost of its construction has been incurred elsewhere.

However, there is a cost in maintaining it, maintaining the infrastructure and support that is necessary and customising the application to suit the individual event or flight - the aviation, train or ferry journey, or whatever it is. That can all be done through consultation but Ireland has avoided the heavy investment in the technology because it has been done by others elsewhere.

Second, the critical issue with cost is the volume of the order. The bigger the order and the number that is required, the lower the price will be. There is the issue of available stocks of the approved products, and all of that can be ascertained. As was indicated by Mr. O'Grady, we can access up to 8 million of these tests per week, if needs be, and the cost of that would be greatly reduced by a substantial order. There is then the issue of the timeframe which has to be met and supply chains.

There is also the distribution issue. For example, does the customer want an entity in the private sector, such as Dr. Power’s company or Mr. O'Grady’s company, to distribute it or does the customer want to use a commercial entity that will actually be required to distribute it, or perhaps use the organisation that is involved? I give the example of the GAA in particular. My goodness, there is no better organisation given it is organised on a county and parish basis and can have a prearranged system for distribution of these tests. We can add to that the fact most people nowadays have a smartphone, and the linkage that can be done between the technology and the test is fantastic and can be scaled up immediately.

We try to minimise the manpower that will be required with the technology, and Dr. Power and Mr. O’Grady indicated that trying to keep a clinic open on a day-to-day basis will result in manpower costs, but there are-----