Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It was a devastating blow to County Clare and Shannon that in the same week the traffic light system was announced, the Ryanair base at Shannon closed. I would largely agree with Mr. Wilson regarding the regionalisation argument. The Covid-19 figures are released around teatime every evening. When the ECDC talks about regionalising risk, it seems, and I made this point yesterday, that it is looking at countries more than regions. As far as I can see, there is only one region, which is Calabria, in the south of Italy, to which one can fly and Ryanair is certainly not flying from Shannon to Calabria. If we were to look at the figures provided last night and if Tipperary and Wicklow had airports, their incidence rates have dropped below 150. There is another metric where a region has to have a positivity rate of 4% or lower, but on that metric alone, if we looked at better regionalisation for collecting data, parts of Ireland would be creeping back to levels which would be deemed orange. We need the European Commission and the Department of Transport to urgently clarify the regions Europe is using to designate those regions.

I ask Mr. Moriarty to take up the point on which the Chairman concluded. I hear what he is saying about the uncertainty relating to orange and red routes. Both witnesses were very clear about that but how much of their decision to not fly from Shannon is based on the traffic light system and how much is based on a commercial decision? Could they apportion that out? There has been rigorous questioning from various members. If we get to 8 November and other measures are brought in or we see commonality across members states, they are still saying that they will not be flying until next April. How much of their decision on that would they apportion to corporate and commercial reasoning?