Ms Oonagh Buckley:

The primary responsibility - this is in line with the whole of EU advice - is that the checks should be done not on arrival but on departure. In other words, the person should be checked before boarding the carrier. That is the obligation on carriers, as Mr. Towey pointed out. However, in an effort to support the whole process, border control is carrying out extensive spot checks. We are not carrying out checks on 100% of people because if we were w to do so, it would cause excessive delays at immigration control. We are checking more than 10% of passengers and in some cases 100% of flights. In addition, we must keep the e-gates open because we are back to about 60% of the normal rates of immigrating passengers. We would not be able to cope if we closed the e-gates. Approximately 30% of people fail the e-gates for some reason, for example, for inserting their passport upside down. If a passenger is redirected to the booths, we automatically check that he or she has a test. We have significantly enhanced our testing at the airport over recent weeks in order to support the whole-of-government effort.