TWO TESTS FOR ALL TOURISTS

Dáil committee wants visitor quarantine system bolstered and...

A DÁIL Covid Committee wants all overseas visitors who come into the country to be tested twice.

In an interim report, the Oireachtas committee, which includes Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, recommends that mandatory quarantine upon entry ‘should be monitored more closely’.

The chairman of the oversight committee has also said Garda spot checks could be carried out to ensure proper quarantining by visitors flying here. Another member suggested that Citywest Hotel be used as a quarantining centre for incoming tourists.

The TDs also recommend that all overseas visitors be temperature screened upon arrival.

Under the tranche of proposals, they also advise that visitors be tested at least twice during their stay in Ireland. The recommendations come amid mounting concern over the rise in Covid cases as the country prepares to reopen schools at the end of this month.

Latest figures show an average 13,200 people flew in and out of Dublin Airport every day last week. And the State’s

public health watchdogs have asked the Government to consider implementing a ban on non-essential travel from countries with high rates of Covid-19.

The National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) has said that 7.8% of cases notified over the last fortnight are associated with travel.

They said that ‘all measures be utilised to discourage travel from overseas to Ireland at this time’ amid a worrying escalation of the virus.

There were 50 new cases of Covid-19 reported yesterday, with acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn warning there has been a ‘significant increase’ in the spread of the virus across several counties in recent days.

Now the Dáil’s special Covid committee has urged the Government to make changes to the current Covid-19 testing and contact-tracing system to make it more robust and efficient.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, Junior Minister Ossian Smyth of the Greens and Fine Gael’s Jennifer Carroll MacNeill all sit on the Oireachtas Special Committee established to evaluate the State’s response to the coronavirus crisis.

In their interim report, the TDs say:

‘Another lockdown unsustainable’

‘Quarantine should be enforced so that entrants are required to prove that they are compliant with this public health imperative.’

Independent TD Michael McNamara, the chairman of the committee, said it is understood the system that was put in place in March was done ‘in a hurry’ and a lot of contingency measures had to be taken given the risk of the pandemic.

‘Because of the efforts of all our people, those measures were not needed, but what became clear to the committee is that another lockdown would be unsustainable,’ he said.

‘Testing and contact tracing will allow the State to live with and treat outbreaks of Covid as they arise.’

Speaking last night, he said that we should follow the Austrian model, which forces visitors to quarantine at the address they plan to stay at for their trip.

The Independent TD said immigration officers and gardaí should be used to carry out spot checks to make sure these foreign visitors are isolating at that address.

The 22 recommendations also advise that all healthcare workers get regular testing to identify asymptomatic carriers of the virus. The report warns that the potential for hospital overcrowding to negatively impact on virus containment is a serious risk.

The committee said this issue needs to be addressed within the HSE test and trace plan, and added that any investment which could help to resolve the issue should be deployed.

The report also warns the test and trace system is facing two ‘severe stress tests’ in the coming months, including travel into and within the State, and flu season.

Other recommendations in the report include:

■ A more vigorous response from the State to ensure contacts of confirmed cases are being tested;

■ Ensuring a sufficient supply of testing equipment;

■ Detailed anonymised data about infections – including geographical and demographic information – should be made public as quickly as possible;

■ Ongoing assessment of the technical performance of the HSE’s Covid Tracker app and the extent to which it is adding value to test and trace efforts;

■ The HSE’s target turnaround time for end-to-end testing should be one day at most.

Last night, co-leader of the Social Democrats Róisín Shortall, who also sits on the committee, said that the Government should look at the State-leased Citywest Hotel as an option for quarantining overseas visitors.

Citywest Hotel has a capacity of 1,700 beds for self-isolation.

She said: ‘Citywest is lying there more or less idle at the moment and the State is paying for that.’

Commenting on the recommendations, Sinn Féin’s health spokesman David Cullinane questioned how much of the report would be actually implemented.

‘All-party reports are what they are. It’s like Sláintecare, they are all great in principle but whether they’ll be implemented is another thing,’ he said.

Meanwhile, the Health Minister has said the Government will look at introducing or lifting coronavirus restrictions on a regional basis ‘in the future’. But Mr Donnelly said the Government couldn’t allow some regional pubs to reopen. He said community transmission cases are happening ‘all over the country’, so therefore they couldn’t allow some pubs in rural areas reopen.