The Government has a responsibility to provide antigen testing for free or at an affordable rate, according to the Social Democrats co-leader.

The Health Minister Stephen Donnelly today said plans to subsidise antigen tests had been scrapped because retailers have started to sell them cheaper.

A number of retailers including Lidl have started selling the rapid tests for as little as €3.

Minister Donnelly had previously said tests would be available for "a few Euro" and it had been expected any subsidy would allow them to be sold for around €2 - €3.

    

On The Hard Shoulder this evening, the Social Democrats Co-Leader Róisín Shortall said the Government had made a “big mistake” scrapping the plan.

“Most countries in Europe provide them free of charge because they are an important tool,” she said. “We are being told all the time about the importance of personal responsibility.

“Now, where people are doing the right thing and taking two antigen tests a week as a screening tool, we should be making those as available as possible to people.

“The fact that the occasional supermarket is selling them at a discounted price is not adequate in my view. You can’t leave this to the vagaries of the market and that seems to be what the Government is proposing to do rather than taking responsibility.”

She said the tests should be available free of charge or, failing that, at a heavily discounted price.

“It’s all very well to say €3 or €4 isn’t a whole lot of money but there are plenty of families that would struggle to come up with money like that,” she said.

“It is advised they are carried out twice a week and if you call that €8, in a family of four, that is €32 per week if they are doing the right thing.

“That is quite a bit of money for people who are on tight budgets – especially in the present circumstances with the high cost of living. The aim should be to make them as accessible and affordable as possible and the Government seems to have washed its hands of that now.”

Deputy Shortall said a specific scheme is required to ensure antigen tests are accessible for everyone – especially in area of low income and depravation.

She said there is also a danger of retailers selling ineffective or unreliable tests and said the Government must ensure all tests sold in Ireland have the necessary accreditation.

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