Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will deal first with Deputy Duncan Smith's questions. The reason for the Cabinet meeting delay yesterday was that we had a Cabinet sub-committee meeting on the stimulus plan involving Ministers, the Tánaiste, the leader of the Green Party and me, with a whole host of officials, in coming to the final stages of the preparation of what will be a very comprehensive stimulus plan to create jobs. I would not read anything into the fact that we had to put the meeting back. I had come back from the Dáil yesterday after dealing with the duties I had here in terms of questions and so on. The timelines were tight and that explains it. We did meet in advance of the Cabinet, which is what we do. That is the whole idea of a Cabinet sub-committee. In line with all Cabinet sub-committees meetings, I am not in a position to reveal what happens at the meetings. They go through what is about to come up.

In terms of the memorandum in regard to travel, that has been in preparation for quite some time and the whole issue of international travel has been on the agenda for approximately two months or more, since the whole reopening started. If the Deputy recalls, about two weeks ago we put back the decision in regard to international travel until 20 July, which was the day before yesterday, but because I got detained in Brussels for four days, which was not anticipated, we had to put everything back, hence the meeting at 8 o'clock last evening. I had thought I would be in Dublin on Monday morning but I was not. There is no big mystery to the fact that we have had Cabinet meetings and we had to have one at 8 o'clock last night. There was no mystery to that, just that I was in Brussels and was not in a position to be here Monday. Luckily, I got back on Tuesday in time for the Dáil. The memorandum itself would have been in preparation last week and over the weekend. I would have had discussions over the weekend with others in relation to it and those issues were being debated and discussed with the relevant Ministers. We had a very good meeting last night at Cabinet on the issue. It was constructive and matter of fact.

I have to state that I listened to Deputy Boyd Barrett's comments and I think he is overstating the issue. I think there is a degree of hyperbole in what he is saying. The bottom line is that these countries have a lower incidence of Covid-19 than Ireland has. People need to know that information.

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