Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Anyone travelling should pay for the test themselves. I do not think that public money should be used for that; I would prefer to use that to hire doctors and nurses, pay for vaccines and so on. I think Ireland and Finland are the only orange zone countries in the EU. For anyone leaving Ireland for another member state, the rule states they must have had a negative PCR test within three days of flying.

Regardless of what anyone does on the way out, it is the journey back that we are selfishly interested in. We have a position if one is coming into Ireland from any country in the EU, other than Finland, or from any country within the wider EEA, although Iceland is in the orange zone as well, and most of the world, including the western world, is red. The unambiguous position on that is that when one comes in, one must restrict one's movements for two weeks. One can shorten that to five days if on the fifth day one takes a test and that comes back negative. That is the situation for Ireland and for most of the rest of the EU as well.