I, too, want to raise the current and serious problem of the non-availability of PCR testing in my county of Wexford. Yesterday, there were no Covid-19 PCR tests available for 23 counties according to the Health Services Executive portal. We respect the scale of the problem, but surely one would have to deduce that the opening-up of society would logically correlate to an increase in Covid-19 cases in the population and, therefore, more PCR tests would be needed. What is being done about the lack of PCR walk-in or pop-up centres? When will PCR testing be available in County Wexford?

We have scaled up our testing capacity considerably. We can provide tests for about 30,000 people a day now. Unfortunately, with so many people experiencing respiratory symptoms, there is no system in any country that could deal with that number of people with symptoms looking for a test. As has been the case at other points of the pandemic, we now have to prioritise those with a GP referral and close contacts who have symptoms. The National Public Health Emergency Team is examining the testing criteria at present to see what further prioritisation we can carry out.

I wish to raise the same issue about pop-up test centres. Last night, I asked the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, if he would make a commitment to contact the HSE in Louth in relation to it providing a pop-up test centre for Drogheda and he said he would respond in his closing statement, but he did not. As the Tánaiste will probably know, Louth has the highest case numbers in the country and Drogheda has been particularly hard hit with one in 40 people testing positive in the last fortnight. I contacted the HSE at the start of the week looking for a simple pop-up PCR test centre and it has not responded yet, despite the fact that case numbers are going through the roof.

The surge was predicted and it is now here, but the infrastructure is not in place to deal with it. Case numbers are rising in Drogheda, where they are the highest in the country. Will the Government commit to providing a simple pop-up test centre to allow for the PCR tests to be done? No PCR tests were available yesterday and there are none available today or tomorrow.

As I said earlier, we scaled up testing to the capacity of about 30,00 a day. We brought the Defence Forces, the private sector and the public sector on board. However, there are limitations to capacity when it comes to testing, as is the case in any country of the world, and that is why we have to prioritise. We are prioritising those with GP referrals, those who are symptomatic close contacts of somebody who has been diagnoses with Covid. We have had to do this several times during the course of the pandemic. There comes a point when there are so many people with symptoms that it is not possible to test everyone within 24 hours, and that is why we have to prioritise.