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

I hope the Deputy will respond to the questions I have asked later in the day. We will be happy to make time for that, or for a debate on the matter.

Testing demand nearly trebled on Monday compared to last week, with a requirement for over 13,000 tests in the community and 3,000 hospital tests, a total of 16,000 in one day. Capacity is approximately 15,000 per day. While demand has fallen since Monday, it remains quite high and the HSE is going to go ahead with the planned meat plant testing next week.

I am informed that we have capacity for approximately 100,000 tests per week, or 15,000 tests per day. The highest that has been done so far is 70,000 in a week and it is something that we will discuss at the Covid Cabinet sub-committee this afternoon.

It is important to point out that, since the beginning of the pandemic, Ireland has done a lot of testing. We have perhaps not done as much as countries such as Singapore or Luxembourg, but we have done much more than many other countries per head of population. We have done more than New Zealand, Germany, Canada, Norway, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands, to name just a few. We are building capacity all the time.

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