Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I wish to speak about rapid testing. My colleague spoke about the world of politics versus Covid versus economics. The one thing we as politicians often get caught up in is opinion polls where there is always a 3% margin of error. Is there any margin of error in the realm of science, given that with Covid testing we talk about Covid-negative and Covid-positive? In particular, what I am interested in is if we could move to rapid testing at airports both at the point of departure and arrival. If we could board a flight knowing or believing that passengers around us were Covid free, it would instil great confidence and people might start travelling internationally as opposed to just going to the neighbouring county again. Is there any margin of error in the Covid tests, both the test we have in Ireland and the tests in other countries? I do not know who to direct my question to, but perhaps Dr. Sam McConkey would be able to address the issue in the Irish context.