Two COVID-19 testing facilities will open at Dublin Airport this Thursday, November 19.

The testing facilities, which will be operated by healthcare firms Randox and RocDoc, will offer passengers and consumers the option of either a drive-through test or a walk-in test.

Prices, which are set by the providers of the service, will start at €99 and both PCR and LAMP testing will be available. The testing facilities are fully open to the public, whether they require a test for travel or for another reason.

Randox (Walk-through service)
PCR test €99 with results in 24-48 hours

RocDoc (Drive-through service)
PCR test €129 with results in 24-48 hours
LAMP test €149 with results in 12 hours
LAMP test express €159 with results in 5 hours

In Association with

All customers will need to pre-book their test online in advance and this can be done directly with the healthcare company in question. Links to the booking portals will also be available on the Dublin Airport website.

The healthcare providers that are working with Dublin Airport have testing capacity c.12,000 tests per day if needed, and this will shortly be expanded to 15,000.

Several countries now require arriving passengers to have had a negative Covid test result prior to travel. Testing is also one of the elements of the new European Union/European Economic Area traffic light system for travel, which has been adopted by Ireland and other European countries.

Randox’s walk-through facility will be located in an existing building close to the Terminal 2 multi-storey car park and will have separate entry and exit points for customers.

RocDoc’s drive-through facility will be located in the Express Green car park, which is accessed via the R132 (Old Airport Road). Both facilities will be clearly signposted.

Last week the government adopted the EU traffic light system on travel, within which specific regions are independently designated as Green, Orange or Red by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (EDCD) depending on the level of cases in those areas.

There are no restrictions on travel from a Green area to another other country within the system. Each EU member state can set its own rules in relation to how it deals with arriving passengers from Orange and Red areas.

The Irish government has said that passengers arriving from an Orange region should restrict their movement for 14 days unless they have a negative/not-detected result from a COVID-19 PCR test taken no more than three days before their day of departure. However, this is guidance only and is not a legal obligation

At the moment, any passengers arriving from a Red region are requested to restrict their movements for 14 days. From midnight on November 29, arriving passengers from Red regions will not have to continue to restrict their movements if they have a negative/not-detected result from a Covid-19 PCR test taken at least five days after arrival in Ireland.

RocDoc also has Covid-19 testing facilities at Cork and Shannon airports. As well as testing passengers, the two centres can provide private testing services to the public, with test results in a few hours. The company has sited labs at each centre to process the tests on-site.

Chief executive David Rock said: “Our focus is to provide testing for passengers flying in and out of the airports, but our facilities are also open to members of the public who wish to have a test or local businesses who want to keep their staff safe. In the next few weeks, we will also be rolling out another regional testing facility.’’

Cork Airport managing director Niall MacCarthy was the first person to be tested.

“Cork Airport and the aviation sector urgently needs a clear pathway to recovery. The pandemic continues to pose a huge problem for the aviation industry. Airports and airlines alike hope that widespread testing will give passengers greater confidence to travel," he stated.. 

“As a result of this initiative, passengers flying from Cork Airport can now get a test in advance of travel to prove they have tested negative for coronavirus for any health authorities that require it for Irish originating traffic.”

Apart from the drive-through testing centre, RocDoc operates a GP service and a Minor Emergency Department in Ashbourne, Co Meath.

Pic Daragh McSweeney/Provision