Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for another excellent question. Rapid testing, or antigen testing, is now being deployed across the healthcare settings at a significant volume as of this week. I have set up an independent expert group to report back to me very quickly on exactly the question the Deputy asked: can we deploy antigen testing in non-healthcare settings such as schools, nursing homes, workplaces, here in the Oireachtas or wherever it may be? I am looking forward to getting a view on that. The short version - I will finish on this because I know we are over time - is that the evidence on antigen testing is that it is not a good surveillance tool and that PCR is what we use for that. As the Deputy will be aware, there is now weekly PCR testing in all of the nursing homes, which is very valuable. Antigen testing is not good as a surveillance tool. The tests to date suggest it is not particularly good for mass testing and picking up non-symptomatic infections. However, apparently what it is good at and what it has been successful in - there are mixed studies from around the world but this is what has been shown, at least in some of the studies - is picking up those who have a higher viral load and are more contagious. I am looking forward to hearing back from the expert group as to where we could, and how we would, deploy exactly what the Deputy has suggested.

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