Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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No, it is fine. We have had a good level of public buy-in. The Irish public worked hard at the initial flattening of the curve. In common with other areas across Europe and the world, we are beginning to suffer from lockdown fatigue, where it is becoming more difficult to sustain the level of lockdown we are in. In that regard, I am interested in what Dr. Schaffer, in particular, was talking about in terms of getting more information into the communities, regionalising our efforts in that respect and making the information more granular so that people know exactly where the outbreaks are to get that public buy-in on a local level. We do community buy-in well in Ireland. It is something that is built into our psyche.

I want to raise two issues that I have mentioned at this committee previously. I would like to hear a little more on testing techniques which are less about showing us where Covid-19 is and more about showing us where it is not. I have read a couple of studies about pool testing, that is, testing large volumes in one batch which seems to me would be particularly useful for flights or in meat factories, for example, where we have had outbreaks. I am also interested in effluent or waste water testing. If such testing is accurate, and this is what I would like the experts to speak to, it may be possible to find out on a town-by-town basis where Covid is not. That might allow us, on a much more granular or regionalised basis, to move to level one or level zero, as spoken about by Dr. Ryan. I ask the experts to comment on whether pool testing or effluent testing should be tools in our arsenal in the fight against the spread of Covid-19.