Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for the information. I really appreciate it. The issue is that general practitioners are inundated and we all know it. Increasingly, they are being swamped. For one particular general practitioner in Cork, the number of people presenting has been impossible to deal with. What does the Government propose to do to free up or create a more streamlined process in order that general practitioners during a bad winter or whatever lies ahead - it is going to be bad one way or the other but hopefully not too bad - can do their normal work and not be totally taken up with Covid? We have to look to alternatives. The report mentioned will be welcome. General practitioners also will be administering the influenza vaccination. They will be inundated in terms of that service, although I welcome that.

We have to look to alternatives. The device I am holding up is a Covid test. It takes ten minutes but it is not 100% accurate. I am no expert but I am told it is between 90% and 95% accurate. The test took ten minutes. How is it proposed to do population testing? Is it proposed to roll out all other forms of technologies as well, obviously regulated and so on?

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