Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I accept that response as the Minister has given it but, as I said, I do not think we are doing enough. I heard the CMO on radio the other morning and, basically, he was not gushing in his praise for what antigen testing can do. I think that is a mistake.

The other thing I would point out to the Minister is that there is a significant cost differential between PCR testing and antigen testing, probably at a rate of 10:1. Therefore, it suggests we could be doing a lot of antigen testing for the large amount of money that we are spending.

I want to offer the Minister one other piece of advice for teachers, if I may. There is now a lot of evidence that supports the supplementation of vitamin D. Despite the fact that, again, NPHET and the CMO will not endorse this, I can tell the Minister most medics in the country are supplementing vitamin D. I would ask that this message goes out to teachers at the moment. We live in a northern latitude country. We are not making enough vitamin D and there is a significant correlation between adverse Covid and low levels of vitamin D. Perhaps that is something the Minister might like to put out as a public health message at some point.

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