Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is an important set of decisions ahead for the Government in the next couple of days. Only two of the four metrics that we have discussed before are going in the right direction. It is important to be prudent yet and to acknowledge also vaccine progress, with 10% of the people having had the first vaccine dose. As the Government prepares its decisions, I ask the Tánaiste to look at two additional matters. One is the nuance that antigen testing can bring to how we enable people to get back out and to protect themselves at an infectious but asymptomatic stage. A further point that we might look at is when over 70-year-old citizens are fully vaccinated in the summer, can they have access to hospitality at an earlier stage to drive some revenue for hospitality and to provide a bonus for them to be able to get out sooner than might otherwise be the case?

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