Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On 21 July the Government agreed a list of 15 locations for which the advice against non-essential travel no longer applies, as far as formal travel advice is concerned. The travel advice for those locations now is to take normal precautions which is represented by a green bar under the system of country risk ratings used by my Department. It is important to note that the list of territories subject to this change in travel advice was compiled in close consultation with the Department of Health. As such it is subject to the views of the range of public officials and advisers engaged on the issue. As on all matters related to the Government's response to Covid-19, the NPHET and the Expert Advisory Group have been and will continue to be vitally important to providing advice to the Department of Health and the wider Government in determining our path forward.

A core criterion in assessing eligibility for inclusion on the aforementioned list is an epidemiological one, namely that the European territories in question had, over the previous 14 days, a similar or lower caseload of Covid-19 per 100,000 people than Ireland, as reported by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.  This epidemiological benchmark provides us with a level of confidence that inbound travellers from these jurisdictions are not only unlikely to have the virus but they are no more likely than Irish residents they may encounter to have the virus and therefore they represent a very low risk level. The Government will continue to draw upon the expertise and guidance of the NPHET and the Expert Advisory Group as we chart our way through the pandemic response. However, it is important to underline that the role of these bodies is to advise and the role of the Government is to make decisions, taking into account the wider overall view of Ireland’s interests. That is what we have done in this instance and what we will continue to do.

I also say to the Deputy that weeks in advance of this we flagged the fact that we would look at epidemiological data and that we would limit the restrictions to countries that pose a more significant Covid risk than is currently present in Ireland.

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