Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to ask Mr. Cornelis one or two final questions. At present, the European traffic light system is guided by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The most recent updated map of risk level is dated 22 October. I have been looking at the red regions. The Commission made it clear, when it was announced that we were moving to the traffic light system, that it was based on regions as opposed to countries, and yet in discourse it often gets mixed up. It has been much reported that it is red, green and orange countries when, in fact, it is regions. Italy is the only country I can see on the 22 October map where there is a region coloured green and the rest of the country coloured red. For Ireland, mainland Spain, Portugal and France, it is red across the board.

I would be interested in hearing, given that we are a small island nation, if the Commission is considering all of Ireland, by which I mean the Twenty-six Counties or the Republic, to be one region, if the Commission is considering it on a provincial basis, or what kind of regional breakdown there is. That is important as well given that we have our capital's airport in Dublin, but in the west of Ireland, in Clare, where we would be quite a distance from Dublin, it is only recently that our rates of Covid have crept up to a high level. It would be punitive to have the whole country, in European aviation terms, considered as one region. Will Mr. Cornelis clarify that please?