Dr. David Nabarro:

I want to add a third dimension to it. There are also people who might well be wanting to travel for personal reasons. They may have decided that this is important for their well-being, and I would not want to judge that. Of course, what the Deputy is saying has a lot of truth to it. The situation in Spain, as a result of Covid, the lockdown and so on along, with the country's dependence on tourism, is particularly bad for poor people. There is, inevitably, both personal and political pressure to reopen the tourism industry., as I am sure there is in Ireland. There must be people all over the country who are really struggling because the expected tourism income is just not coming in. So, yes, there will be economic pressures for opening up all round. I am trying very hard not to say that that is wrong, because I appreciate it and I am hearing from so many people about how much pain there is. In the end, the Deputies, as legislators, and the authorities in the Government have to weigh up people's personal wishes, the economic issues and the health threats.

I heard Deputy Brophy say one thing and I want to pick up on it. He asked whether it was all right to bring people together from all over Europe, expose them to risk and have them disperse again. If it was like that, I would be super-worried. The only rational basis for establishing air bridges is after a very careful and independent assessment of the risk in the different locations and trying to make absolutely certain that it is done fairly. For example, let us say country X is setting up air bridges with three or four countries in Europe, countries A, B, C, D and E. It would be absolutely essential to ensure that the risk level in countries A, B, C, D and E as well as in country X was absolutely compatible. It would be totally wrong if, suddenly, it turned out that there had been a mistake, perhaps caused by what the Deputy described as economic pressure. It is also necessary to keep this under examination all the time because things can change. That is it on that one.