Mr. Sean Doyle:

The first thing I would say is that the volume of both flights and passengers coming in from the United States is a fraction of what it was last year. We shared some data publicly on that front. On average, there are about 150 passengers a day compared to about 4,200 a day last year. A significant percentage of those passengers are connecting into Europe. That traffic tends to be essential travel and repatriation. We are flying to three destinations in North America at the moment, namely, Boston, Chicago and New York. What I urge people to understand is the amount of freight or cargo on those flights. We are transporting thousands of tonnes of exports and imports, much of it pharmaceuticals, into and out of the island of Ireland. That is probably one of the main drivers of us maintaining the network as it currently stands.

What we have called for as a group is for the evaluation with urgency of some testing processes that could enable safe travel to open up Europe and the United States. If we look at the availability of testing capability in the United States, there should be a solution we would evaluate and pursue. That is cognisant of the fact that the United States is significantly behind Europe in terms of the progression of the pandemic. The United States is very important and FDI is fundamental. The number of foreign nationals who have worked for US companies in Ireland who will need to start travelling to and from their homes for work and business will be a big issue. We need to find solutions to enable that to flow safely.