Covid-19 (Taoiseach): Statements
Dail Éireann — 2020-05-27
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Leo Varadkar (FG), Dublin West

I think the cost of tests will come down. Everything in healthcare is at a premium at the moment, whether PPE or testing kits. Everyone is looking for the same stuff and the cost is very high, but I think the cost of testing will come down. The Deputy is right that in Austria, one can have a test done in the airport but one has to bear the cost of €190. No work has been done in our airports that I am aware of to see if we can set up testing there, but we can give it consideration. The direction of travel in policy is probably a bit different. We currently have a 14-day quarantine for people coming into the country through our airports and ports. We would like to get to a point at some stage in the future, within months rather than weeks, where we can lift that quarantine requirement if people are flying to or from another country where the virus has been successfully suppressed, and then we would not need to do testing at all. As things stand, neither Britain or America is one of those countries.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2020-05-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:19+00:00
Sitting date: 2020-05-27