Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Friday, 24 July 2020

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response

Covid-19: Impact on International Travel

Mr. Evan Cullen:

We are in the risk-management business. When managing risk, it is never a binary decision. What is done is a whole series of strategies and tactics are put in place to mitigate the risk. There is no such thing as a binary decision. The only binary decision is whether to get out of bed in the morning. If I do so, I run the risk of something happening to me, whether I go to work or to school, or whether I go flying or not. What has to be done is that one has to build into the system all the components that mitigate the risk. When we refer to testing, I am not saying that testing solves everything. Rather, it is part of an overall strategy and set of tactics to deal with and manage this issue. There is no silver bullet. What is happening, however, and this is a very cynical view, is that travel is being used as a bogeyman to justify a lack of investment in measures such as testing and contact tracing. That is what we believe is going on.

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