Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh:

Gosh. That is anticipating what antigen testing might look like and stepping into a live debate on the matter.

The research is ongoing and we will follow the public health advice in that context. Our experience with students is that when we ask them to engage in a testing process and to be tested with HSE West - returning to the original question of Deputy Alan Farrell around off-campus challenges - they were very forthcoming. My expectation is that students will engage with this process if asked and will welcome it as part of a broader mechanism. The protocols around it, how it might work, and whether it will be implemented at all is really a question for the evidence base and for the public health advice. The logistics of this are probably a bit further down the road than we are right now but my expectation is that it will work quite smoothly in the context of how students have worked with us so far in, for example, the testing regime. We are stepping into a debate that is quite live and we will await the outcome of the research in the first instance and will then work through the logistics of it.

I also return to the point that I made in that context. Of much greater importance to me is moving at a faster pace for September with the vaccination roll-out. Whether we get there by early September or when in September we get there is, to me, the more critical question at this stage. We will wait for the public health advice and the evidence base on antigen testing to give us more detail in that context.