People 'staying up until midnight pressing refresh on a screen' to book Covid tests
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People are "staying up until midnight pressing refresh on a screen" in attempts to book PCR tests, the Dáil has been told.
Labour's Duncan Smith made the comments during Wednesday's Leaders' Questions, which focused largely on the health service and highlighted shortfalls in the testing service.
Mr Smith said that it was "unacceptable" that there were difficulties in obtaining tests in recent days due to overwhelming demand.
He told Taoiseach Micheál Martin that the Government had been "acting as though this wave of Covid was the last".
"There's no doubt we're doing an unbelievable amount of PCR tests. But the Government had to actually get the private companies in Dublin, Cork and Shannon Airports to try and meet demand.
"Myself and other opposition last year asked for the HSE to set up facilities in airports. The opposition have been trying to give practical solutions over the course of this pandemic. And if they had have been listened to at the time, we wouldn't be scrambling for private capacity to be used to meet to try to meet demand for PCR testing.
"But it's not it's still not working. It's still not enough and we still can't get tests if you logged on right now.
"People are really, really upset out there and they're expecting restrictions coming down the line. That's what I'm getting all the last few days is further restrictions are coming down the line. So you're going to have to get straight with people and you're going to have to make long-term plans and stop operating as if this wave is going to be our last."
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett added that "you can't get a PCR test for love nor money" in parts of the country. He said that walk-in testing centres needed to be resumed.
The Taoiseach said that 207,000 tests have been carried out in the last week and that "some of the language is out of order".
"We've used every available mechanism to increase capacity on PCR. We've also broadly widened participation in antigen testing through, particularly, close contacts."
"You would get the impression that nobody was able to access testing. I remember last year that we were talking about 100,000 tests a week. We're doing double that."
Earlier, the Taoiseach said that a cancelled transplant at the Mater Hospital 10 days ago should have gone ahead. The transplant was cancelled because there was not an intensive care bed available.
"I believe that that operation should have gone ahead. There's enormous pressure on the Mater. I would have funded that heart and lung transplant unit as Minister. There was a big debate at the time as to whether we could pull that off in terms of the numbers of cases coming to the country.
"But I took the decision at the time to do it to fund it. So it's a cause of great regret to me that transplant didn't go ahead and there is an internal inquiry going on or investigation going on within the Mater as to that. But suffice to say that we will do everything we possibly can to protect lives."