Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----the availability of testing kits and systems in which to get people their results. There may be a change in the next few weeks, for example, whereby an antibody test may become available. While no effective antibody test is available at the moment, it may become available next month or the month after - nobody knows for sure - and that would move from a swab test to a blood test. Circumstances are changing dynamically all the time, and what was an issue a day or two ago might not be an issue today but may become an issue in a few days time.

On reagents, we have made approaches directly to both Abbott and Roche, which are two of the big companies that provide testing equipment. I am learning a lot about the matter, as many people are, and one thing I have learned is that different machines use different reagents. For example, in the case of one Roche machine, the Cobas 6800, there is no shortage of reagent, whereas for a different machine, whose name I cannot remember, there is a shortage of reagent. We are getting more of the reagent for the latter machine and a new model of the machine for which there is not a shortage of the reagent. One advantage of bringing Enfer, the veterinary lab, online is that it uses a whole different system. It is never in any way as simple as may be represented sometimes in commentary.

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