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Covid-19 pre-departure testing at Dublin and Cork airports could be available to passengers in mid-October with help from the government, the Oireachtas Transportation Committee has heard.
Dalton Philips, chief executive of daa, which operates Dublin and Cork airports, told the Oireachtas Transportation Committee this morning that airports have the capacity to perform up to 15,000 pre-departure PCR tests per day if the government adopts the traffic light system of the European Commission.
The proposed traffic light system would allow the free movement of people traveling from areas coded in green and orange, with a trial regime to be considered for countries coded in red.
Mr Philips said daa research indicates that pre-departure testing reduces the risk of virus importation by> 99%.
“Ultimately, however, the government must approve a scalable, low-cost, and rapid-response test solution for use at Irish airports so that we can move quickly as the market introduces products more suitable for airport operations. For example, LAMP or antigen testing, “he said. .
This would allow work to begin “to reconnect Ireland to the world” and to “rebuild the businesses and livelihoods that depend on that connectivity,” he said.
Mary Considine, CEO of the Shannon Group, which operates Shannon Airport, echoed the daa’s calls, saying, “Trial rather than movement restriction should be the way to go.”
State Minister for Transport Hildegarde Naughton said it is understandable that the aviation industry is proposing antigen testing as the preferred option for testing given its “relatively cheaper price and faster turnaround time.”
“However, the World Health Organization does not consider antigen-based testing suitable for an international travel testing context,” he said.
While acknowledging that the daa has conducted research on other types of tests, it said its application “is not yet fully validated.”
Ms. Naughton also addressed the fact that the current advice is “do not travel outside of your county.”
He said the government has to be realistic “in relation to our health situation” and declined to provide a date when a testing regime could be introduced at any of Ireland’s airports.
Transport Minister Eamon Ryan said that while the most recent information from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organization is that antigen testing “may not yet be at the stage in the one that offer us real security in the field of international travel. ” if this information changes “then we should use it”.
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