Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for their presentations. Mr. Cullen stated that travel is being used a bogeyman to justify the lack of investment in every other area to do with the virus. That is a pretty big claim and I would like to tease it out with him. He indicated that his work is all about safety and risk management. There is no doubt that air travel is one of the safest forms of transport. In the case of regions that have very high R-nought numbers, however, such as parts of the United States, would Mr. Cullen not agree that, irrespective of how safe it is when someone is travelling to such places, it makes it much more difficult for any government to manage the virus when people come into the country.

If we are taking people from Texas into Ireland in large numbers, say, it makes it much more difficult for us as a state to manage the virus, not in terms of the actual travelling itself but in consequence of the arrival of people in numbers from such countries when we are trying to manage the virus here.