Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join my colleague in acknowledging the work on repatriation done by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. A number of constituents have contacted me about it, particularly in respect of the operation in Peru, and it is an absolute credit to the people on the ground, the organisation and the people in Dublin who helped to facilitate it. The Tánaiste also worked hard on it. It was vital not only for those people who were overseas but also for their families who went through incredible stress. It is worth acknowledging that because we move on so quickly in terms of where we are with this pandemic.

I wish to follow up on a theme raised by Deputy Foley, namely, the 14-day quarantine to be required by people coming into the country. I address this to the HSE and, in the absence of representatives of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, I would like to get the perspective of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as well. We are effectively putting ourselves in a situation where, if that remains in place for the next few months, there will be no inbound tourism in Ireland this season. That will have a huge impact, not just in Kerry but in Dublin and on the whole economy of the corporate hospitality area. It is strange for people to see other countries that were far worse affected than our country, such as Spain and Italy, being reopened to allow inbound travel, particularly from Europeans. We seem to be coming to our decision late, and doing it at a time that seems the worst in almost every way.

If the quick test cannot work, why can we not, as in the case of Greece recently, draw up a list of countries where the R-nought number or the level of Covid presence is roughly equivalent to ours and work out a way of processing inward-bound travel? We may have to have restrictions from certain countries but we cannot tell the entire hospitality industry that there will be no inbound tourism.

We have the worst of both worlds in one respect. One has a mandatory form and an optional quarantine. That will play out, however, on international social media and international coverage as there being no point going to Ireland as one cannot go as it is closed. I would like to hear how we are going to move, as well as how quickly we can move, on that, particularly for fellow EU member states.