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

The decision on the criteria for testing is entirely one for the CMO and the NPHET. The CMO is best placed to answer that question. It is not a Government decision at all in any way.

On the three-week interval, the World Health Organization recommends two and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC, recommends four. The incubation period is between five and 11 days. That is why three weeks has been chosen.

On New Zealand, it is important to state we have now tested considerably more people per head than that country. I do not believe New Zealand is comparable. It is in the southern hemisphere. We are in western Europe, which is the epicentre of the virus. New Zealand is a 3.5-hour flight from Australia, which is even less affected than it. It has even fewer cases per head of population We share a land border and a common travel area with the United Kingdom, and we are part of the European Union. The flight the Deputy mentioned is a perfect example of how we are different. It was a flight between London and Belfast, a flight within the United Kingdom, and a flight we had no control over. The only way we could have stopped people on that flight travelling to just this jurisdiction would be to seal the land border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. We are certainly not going to do that.

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