People coming into Ireland from overseas would still have to self isolate, even if they were tested on arrival.
There have been calls for the health system's extra test capacity to be used in this way.
The HSE is testing around 5,000 swabs a day on average, but has the capacity to do 15,000.
But chairman of the Coronavirus Expert Advisory Group, Dr Cillian de Gascun, says testing on arrival wouldn't give a whole lot of reassurance.
"While it might allow you to identify people who have the infection at the point of entry and quarantine those individuals specifically, because of the way the infection works and because of the incubation period, people in whom the virus is not detected at the point of arrival it doesn't give you a lot of reassurance about what happens to those individuals."
