Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I commend my colleague, Senator O'Donovan, on telling his personal story. It is National Epilepsy Week and 40,000 people in this country suffer from epilepsy. As such, I support his request for a debate on this important matter and I hope the Deputy Leader takes it on board.

I wish to raise the issue of antigen testing, which I also raised last week. On Thursday, the European Parliament came closer to opening up our skies by agreeing a digital green certificate, central to which is the use of rapid antigen testing. However, we know that the Department of Health has a major reluctance to introducing antigen testing. We learned over the weekend that, since September, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine had been trying to encourage the Department of Health to introduce rapid antigen testing in meat factories, but that has still not been done properly. The Department's reluctance was on public display at a recent HSE press conference. Will the Government subscribe fully to the digital green certificate or will we opt in partially?

The Irish Air Line Pilots Association, IALPA, is meeting today to encourage the Government to roll out rapid antigen testing. I support the pilots in that endeavour. IALPA will bring a plan to Government Buildings, and I hope it is supported.

Is the Department of Foreign Affairs speaking to the Department of Health? Will we be able to subscribe to the digital green certificate or will we be curtailed because the Government and officials in the HSE have taken a dislike to antigen testing? We know that it is not a silver bullet and that it has a 50% effectiveness rate, but the European Commission has said that it has a major role to play, as has the Ferguson report, which was commissioned by the Department of Health. What is the reason for the reluctance? It could be rolled out in maternity units to let in partners. It could be rolled out across hospitals. Rapid antigen testing has a major role to play and it would be remiss of us not to follow through on that.