Dr. Tony Holohan:

We look at transmission status. The work done by contact tracing and public health teams tries to establish, insofar as they can, where an individual may pick up an infection. That is where we get this information from. Over the course of the summer, those teams indicated that, in relative terms, the proportion of cases from travel increased. That was partly because of the significant progress made by Irish people in driving down the levels of transmission to low numbers. On some days, fewer than ten cases in total were reported.

In that context, a small number of imported cases would have a proportionately large effect. When we got to a point in the summer where we had, for all intents and purposes, eliminated community transmission, the major source of infection was from outside the country. Therefore, its importance increased.

Of late, however, it is fair to say that we have not been as focused on international travel as a source because the risk to people in this country is not arising from the numbers coming through Dublin Airport, but through everything that is happening in this country - socialisation, parties, getting together indoors and outdoors and workplaces. I could go on. Our concern for the past two months in particular has been consumed, and rightly so, by the risk of transmission in this country. Correctly, we were much less focused on the immediate risks posed by international travel, given that it was only adding a small proportion to the total amount of activity. We had a great deal of disease transmission that was Irish, if I could put it that way, and very little international travel in relative terms. If that set of circumstances changes, our considerations will obviously have to change. In other words, if we manage to drive down community transmission to where it was in the summer or if we see things happening that lead to a significant increase in the quantity of international travel, we will have to give some consideration to what we believe the risks arising from that will be and give advice based on our assessment.