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

I believe there is agreement across the board that we need a framework. If we had this framework and rapid antigen testing or whatever types of testing tomorrow, we still would not have a huge number of flights. I accept that the aviation sector has an argument for what it terms the "lost period", but we are where we are at this point in time. I believe there is a worry about getting harmonisation across Europe. The witnesses have spoken on the difficulties the sector is having and about ensuring the sector has the capacity to operate afterwards. There needs to be a straight conversation on what the sector is asking for now. With the best will in the world, and even if all this was put in place, the sector will probably not experience significant travel until next summer. Hopefully, that will be in a period when vaccines will start to roll out, combined with having proper antigen testing.