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

I welcome Mr. Walsh. His opening statement is quite comprehensive.

I will start with employment support, which is the big issue. We all accept that for an island like this connectivity is paramount. We are told throughout this period that it is all about maintaining capacity, particularly in aviation. When we get to the tail end of this, it is important we are able to maintain that connectivity and, within that, to provide protection for workers and their families.

In the Irish sense we can speak about a continuation of the existing supports and even beyond that. I would be grateful for any detail on that.

Much of this work is about what we can put in place in the current set-up for reopening travel. Mr. Walsh mentioned a resumption of the EU traffic light system and eventually removing all quarantine requirements. As he mentioned, the committee did some work with Professor Mark Ferguson, particularly around antigen testing. He spoke about some of the pilots operating in Britain, specifically, where people flying in would perform serial testing on themselves over ten days or a specific period. We have called for pilots to use such a process in this period so we would at least have that heavy lifting done. We have contacted the Government, and particularly the Minister for Transport, about this happening.

We heard from England's chief medical officer about the possibility of the Indian variant overtaking the Kent variant and we hope this will not affect vaccinations and the protection of people but it is a worry. We must take that into account. We should remember on some level that it is Covid-19 that has done this to us. Mr. Walsh might agree that we must consider the likes of the digital green certificate and rapid antigen tests in order to give us choice.

I am interested in the idea of the American corridor. I accept the importance of our relationship with America but has there been any communication about this on the other end? At present, they obviously have restrictions on us flying there now. I get that with the passing of weeks, a significant number of people will be vaccinated, allowing more freedom on what can be done.