New contact tracing information has revealed that nearly 250 Dublin Airport flights had positive Covid cases onboard.
The contact tracer also showed information that 80% of close contacts on some planes have never been tested for the virus.
Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy heard that over 50 included “variants of concern” from a contact tracing employee.
Ms Murphy described this revelation as a “real source of concern.”
According to the Irish Examiner, she said: “There has to be confidence that tracing of flights is being done and done right.
“There’s a real risk of importing new variants, which are more difficult to track down and which put the entire vaccination programme at risk.”
An example includes two positive cases that were detected in people who began their journey from India to Ireland in early April. They flew through Western Europe in order to arrive into Dublin Airport.
All passengers are considered to be close contacts on long flights.
But only a fifth of the 43 passengers on that flight were contacted.
And over 40% of the passengers did not avail of a HSE PCR test.
Five close contacts were deemed uncontactable, while two others tested positive.
The tracer expressed that it “seems clear” they picked up the virus on the flight.
The contact tracer said: “So the true rate of inflight transmission will remain a mystery.
“And the cases we miss will show up as increased community transmission.”
The tracer says these flights are “ones I'm losing sleep over.”
“I can’t understand why we can’t track these people down and continually rely on flight manifests.”
