Two new testing centres have opened in Dublin and will be able to swab a combined daily total of 200 people.
The clinics are located in Castleknock in west Dublin and at the Handball Centre at Croke Park in the north inner city.
It comes as more than 14,000 tests for COVID-19 were carried out by the HSE on Thursday, the highest daily number since the virus reached Ireland.
Overall, nearly 63,700 people got results last week which is well under the health system's capacity of 100,000.
Earlier this week, it emerged up to one in four people were not keeping their test appointments.
Today, HSE chief executive Paul Reid says they are still operating well within the system's testing capacity.
He said: "On Thursday this week, we completed our highest daily number of completed tests at over 14,000.
"We've had the capacity of 100,000 per week for some time now.
"We're utilising it based on the cases coming forward and also our serial testing that's ongoing with healthcare workers, nursing homes, meat and food processing plants."
Mr Reid said that more people are being sent in by their GPs for tests.
He added: "Certainly, week on week we've seen an increase in our GP referrals.
"Last week it was up 15% so we are seeing an increase in testing from referrals along with our serial testing."
Main image: File photo. Credit: Robin Utrecht / SOPA Images/Sipa USA
