Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Drogheda urgently needs a Covid-19 testing centre. I thank the 1,307 people who signed a petition on this matter that I launched several days ago. That shows the depth of feeling in the area and the need for a testing centre in Ireland’s largest town.

It is a travesty that Ireland's largest town does not have a Covid-19 testing centre. The population of Drogheda town alone is in excess of 40,000. With its hinterland included, its population is approximately 70,000. The population of Drogheda is larger than the population of counties Leitrim and Longford and is close enough to the population of County Carlow.

Access to quick and safe testing is absolutely crucial for personal and public health, as well as to our economic need. I first made the case for a Covid-19 testing centre in Drogheda back in April but, since then, those calls have fallen on deaf ears. That is not good enough. The system seems to be obsessed with using county boundaries. County boundaries are anachronisms when dealing with a challenge like this. They are certainly an anachronism when one is dealing with a nascent city like Drogheda spread across two local authority areas.

I deal all the time with people in Drogheda being sent for tests in Dundalk. I pay tribute to the medical and lab staff there for their tremendous work. I deal with people in Drogheda who have no option other than to get on public transport to go up the motorway to have a test done in Dundalk, putting themselves and their fellow passengers at risk. They do not want to have to do that. They want to have a safe and accessible test in their own area. If the will is there, as we have seen with the pop-up Covid test centres elsewhere, then this can be done in Drogheda. The truth is that Drogheda needs a Covid-19 test centre and it needs it now.

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