Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It is for testing at airports. The traffic light system requires a domestic approach to the wider European system. If we are going to open up on Sunday under this traffic light system, is that plan available now? How long will it take us to put that plan in place in a practical sense? The airline sector is very damaged and this sector is also vital for the connectivity of our country as an island nation. Some 400,000 Covid locator forms were submitted between 1 September and 30 October. That is a considerably reduced level of traffic movement but it is still a significant number of people. However, in the absence of testing at ports and airports, we are effectively taking a fingers-crossed approach. We need to know what is going to be put in place. We cannot come back in a number of weeks' time, having discovered that this is a known risk that we have not properly mitigated and that we have not put systems in place where we know a risk could be mitigated and we could reduce the problems. There are a number of questions there on the testing and tracing system and the mitigation of risks.

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