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

I agree with the Deputy on his essential point. Antigen testing has a greater role to play in Ireland's battle against Covid, but it is one of those areas where we are very much led by medical and scientific advice. The Deputy will be aware that HIQA carried out a health technology assessment on this and NPHET has given advice on it quite recently which reaffirms the use of antigen testing in certain scenarios such as symptomatic cases and outbreaks. However, the advice that we currently have very strongly from the Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Holohan, and NPHET is that antigen testing has its limitations and that it is not particularly useful in terms of mass screening. It is useful when it comes to symptomatic cases but it misses very high numbers of asymptomatic cases and, therefore, could give people a significant level of false reassurance. It could lead to people being told that they are negative when they are not and therefore spreading the disease rather than stopping it. This is something where we will be very much advised and guided by the doctors and scientists.

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