A COVID-19 testing centre is to be set up within Dublin Airport in the coming days.
In order to cope with an increase in passengers over the Christmas period, as Ireland exits lockdown, the airport is looking to do all it can to ensure that the spread of Covid-19 is limited wherever possible.
Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan is set to sign a ministerial order to confirm that Dublin Airport can get a planning law exemption to open the testing centre without permission from local authority, according to The Irish Times.
Once the waiver is granted, the centre could be set up "within days" according to Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) chief executive Dalton Philips.
The testing centre will allow passengers coming in and out of the airport to be given rapid tests for coronavirus.
It would act as a another significant boost to air travel after the Government announced a a new range of measures under the EU traffic light system.
Under the system there will be green regions, orange regions, red regions and grey regions across the EU.
This map will be updated every Thursday based on EU epidemiological data and the changes will be applied in Ireland the following Monday.
People arriving from "green" regions with fewer than 25 Covid infections per 100,000 people in the last 14 days do not need to restrict their movements.
Neither do those travelling from "orange" areas if they produce a negative test taken in the previous three days.
"Red" regions – those with infection rates of 50 or more per 100,000 and positive tests of 4 per cent – must restrict their movement for a minimum of five days before they can take a test that, if returned negative, ends their quarantine, the Government said.
