Dr. Tony Holohan:

The situation has changed significantly since 2 November when Dr. De Gascun and I were before this committee. We now have a very substantial proportion of the population vaccinated and will shortly find ourselves in the happy position where we think those people will be able to travel freely without the need for any form of testing. That is a remarkably changed situation in relation to travel from the one that pertained when we met this committee last when frankly, any basis we would have had for expressing optimism about the future of travel was very guarded. We are much less guarded about that now. We are on the cusp of being able to see people being enabled to travel once they are vaccinated, with all the appropriate public health measures being applied to both travel and to what people do after they travel. That is a really good situation but we will continue to advocate that people who are not yet vaccinated wait. We are very close to the point where the majority of people in this country who are currently the target of vaccination will be offered a vaccine. That is a much changed situation.

The Deputy, perhaps mistakenly, said at the beginning that we had no form of testing or tracing but that is not the case. PCR testing has been in place since the very early days of this pandemic and there were many-----