Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To be straight about this, that is the shooting match and it needs to happen as soon as possible. We need to engage as many stakeholders and countries as possible both within the EU and outside it. Otherwise, this opening up will not happen. We are basing this on it being down the line. The case for doing so is not great across Europe at the moment. On the issue of borders, we have the bad news that Belgium and the Netherlands cannot reach an agreement on having Dutch hospitals open up for Belgian patients as hospitals in Belgium reach ICU capacity. Those are the difficulties with which we are dealing.

I ask the representatives of the Irish Aviation Authority if they have a particular view on any type of testing. We have all seen the Health Information Quality Authority report on the antigen test. The strongest argument one could make is that the antigen test would work in parallel with the PCR test, but the latter remains the gold standard. Without testing, we will not get anywhere with this.

Will the representatives of the Irish Aviation Authority indicate what they need? We see from their statement and what they have said how utterly susceptible the sector is at this time and how it is impacted by reduced revenue streams. Whatever about cutting back in certain areas, we cannot cut back on security, health and safety and air traffic control. Those need to be maintained throughout this period to ensure we will have an operating infrastructure and industry when we get to a point when we can travel more freely.