A village in Co Roscommon has completed a community rapid Covid-19 testing pilot programme, with 150 residents taking part over a six-week period.
The programme, part of the Health Passport Ireland pilot by the ROQU Group, was carried out in Lecarrow.
It involved a clinical team carrying out weekly tests at a drive-through facility, which was set up in the grounds of the village's church.
The volunteers who took part received their test results within 15 minutes through their Health Passport app, which was then followed by a phone call from the on-site doctor.
Over 1,000 rapid tests were carried out, with seven positive cases detected, all of which were asymptomatic .
Meanwhile, there has been a further slight reduction in the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in hospitals.
As of 8am there were 279 patients with Covid-19, down two since 8pm last night.
There were 19 new admissions over the previous 24 hours, with 16 patients discharged.
There are 40 patients with Covid-19 in intensive care units.
Minister of State Robert Troy said Ireland at the moment is "one of the best in Europe" in terms of incidence rates of Covid-19.
Speaking on RTÉ's The Week in Politics, he said this is due to people’s efforts and the Level 5 measures.
Mr Troy said he accepts that the Government needs to improve the number of contact tracers employed, but "trackers and tracers alone will not curtail the disease", the only way to do that is by reducing social contacts, and washing hands.
Sinn Féin's Kathleen Funchion said the Government had a huge "missed opportunity" in terms of preparing for the second wave of the virus and with people potentially travelling home for Christmas, the country needs to have testing facilities available at ports and airports.
She said ordinary people are playing their part with the measures, but are not seeing the Government playing its part in terms of additional capacity, or other measures such as rent freezes and mortgage breaks.
