Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On this day last week, the General Affairs Council of the European Union met in Luxembourg and agreed on what is now being called a traffic light system. It is a risk-rating system to co-ordinate travel across EU member states. This agreement will mean that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control will publish a weekly map of European regions, as opposed to countries, and use the colours of green, orange and red to categorise the contagion risk of Covid-19 in these regions. On the surface, this would appear to be a good development. When Covid rates, hopefully, start to fall back across member states we will start to see people once again having the confidence to fly with airlines without complications. It will be advantageous to green countries. However, the situation regarding countries designated green seems to be fluid. Crucially, when people arrive from green countries they will not have to quarantine. That is good but beyond that, I have grave concerns about how orange and red regions will be treated. Each member state will decide the appropriate health measures to be put in place for incoming air passengers from these regions. This does not equate to simplifying Europe-wide air travel. I am concerned that without a uniform approach by all member states to orange and red regions, we will not see a normal return to air travel any time in the near future. I implore the Government to seek an immediate overhaul of the traffic light system at the next European Council meeting to ensure there is a common approach across Europe.

There is also an acute need for member states to adopt a common approach to travel from outside the European Union. What we have now is a patchwork of policies for flights coming from America, Canada, the Middle East and beyond. With Covid-19 cases on the rise throughout Ireland and elsewhere in Europe, there are few airplanes in our skies. The real point, however, is that we have time at the moment to devise an A to Z aviation policy that instils confidence in people and gets our airlines back flying. Airlines are planning their spring and summer schedules for 2021.

They need certainty and the Government and the European Union need to give them that certainty. Only last week, Ryanair announced the closure of its bases at Shannon Airport and Cork Airport due to the uncertainty. What we need in this quiet time in global aviation is the expeditious introduction of testing at all our airports. We also need to use this unprecedented quiet time to overhaul aviation policy. Without these changes, Shannon Airport will be in a dogfight for its survival and I am sure the same could be said for Cork Airport.

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