Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to speak in this debate in the time allowed to me. I welcome the announcement by the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, yesterday regarding the appointment of Professor Mary Horgan to lead an antigen testing working group. As Chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications, I wrote to the Minister yesterday afternoon requesting that the aviation sector form part of the terms of reference of the working group. It is hugely important that it does. The committee has held extensive public debates on antigen testing. In fact, we have led the way in terms of a constructive discussion on the role antigen testing has to play. Witnesses who have appeared before the committee include Professor Mark Ferguson and Professor Michael Mina, as well as the CMO, Dr. Tony Holohan, and his team. I would like the Minister to give a commitment here today that antigen testing for aviation will form part of the work programme of the new group.

It is also important that the working group led by Professor Horgan should move on from questioning antigen testing to seeing how we can best use it. All I have seen, within the system as opposed to within the Government, is questioning. The bottom line is that antigen testing is not foolproof but it has a role to play. PCR testing is the gold standard but there are areas where it may not be able to do what antigen testing can do. One of those instances is aviation, where there is a requirement for PCR testing three days prior to departure but no guarantee that by the time a passenger gets on the aeroplane, he or she does not have Covid. Antigen testing will pick up that cohort of people who are at their most infectious. It will not identify everyone who has Covid but it will pick up the cohort in which people are in the ten-day period when they are most infectious. For the same reason, antigen testing also has a role in indoor dining. Vaccination is the absolute gold standard, followed by PCR testing and then antigen testing. They all have a role to play.

My position, then, is that the terms of reference of the working group must include the aviation sector and must be about implementing a structured approach in terms of the role antigen testing can play in reducing the risk from the coronavirus. It is about identifying people when they are at their most infectious. If we are taking a vaccination status approach when it comes to indoor dining, antigen testing can be used to facilitate people who are not vaccinated. For crying out loud, why was there such resistance within NPHET to antigen testing? It is not the be-all and end-all but it has a role to play. Let us grab the opportunity it presents. Professor Horgan's working group must not be about continued questioning but, rather, about ascertaining what role antigen testing has to play. I hope the Minister will give a commitment today that aviation will be included within the group's remit.

I very much welcome the announcement this morning that, from Monday, people aged between 18 and 34 can go to a participating pharmacy and get the Janssen vaccine. In Limerick, like everywhere else, we have a large number of young people. I encourage them to go to the pharmacy and get the vaccine. It will benefit them, their family and the wider community. It is hugely important that they do so.

From next Friday, those aged 30 to 34 can register on the HSE online portal for the mRNA vaccines - Pfizer and Moderna. This is very much welcome. From 12 July, those aged 18 to 34 can register on the HSE portal for the AstraZeneca and Janssen vaccines. I ask young people aged 18 to 34 in Limerick to look up the HSE website, find out their participating pharmacy, contact it and get the vaccine. It will take a worry away from them, their friends and families and the wider community. This is the way forward.

It is a race against time between the vaccine and the virus. I very much welcome the fact that the Minister made the decision yesterday to bring in antigen testing as part of the toolkit in the fight against the coronavirus. Antigen testing has a role to play but it has not been allowed to feed into things for the past number of months, although it has fed into certain areas. The terms of reference of the working group must include the aviation sector. The working group must also look at how we can make best use of antigen testing rather than continuing to question it. It must be action driven. If the working group ends up being a talking shop in the public mind, it will lose its currency. This is about action rather than talk. Now is the time to drive on. We have a window of time. The digital green certificate is coming in on 19 July, which is just under three weeks away. It is hugely important that the aviation sector is included in the terms of reference of the working group and prioritised.

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