Dr. Ronan Glynn:

Mandatory quarantine is one measure and it has clearly attracted significant attention and debate over recent days, and debate on any of these issues is welcome. Again, however, I would caution that the experience over the past year has been - and this is very understandable - that we typically bounce from question to question and from theme to theme as though if we could just do this or that one more thing, we could all go back to normal.

Unfortunately, that is simply not the case. We all want to go back to normal. From NPHET's perspective, we want any measure brought in that will suppress this to the level we saw last June. As I said, I am sure a variety of different measures are being considered that are way outside my sphere of understanding or expertise that might further help to reduce levels of incoming travel to this country. I remember voicing concerns before Christmas that incoming travel could contribute to issues we would see at this time so I am not downplaying it in any way but it is also worth again reflecting in these conversations that the vast majority of people in this country have listened to the advice and have restricted travel. Travel volumes are down very substantially on what they were previously. The one thing I do not want to happen in this debate is for people out there to feel they are in the minority or are the stupid ones for not booking their holiday this summer. That is not the case. The majority of people have listened to the advice. I know last summer was particularly difficult for people but they continued to listen to the advice and I do not think we should lose sight of that in the debates we have on this issue.