Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is an unfolding situation. Many people are looking towards Christmas and want to know what testing regime will be in place. How does the Government plan to advise people on foreign travel for the Christmas period? Some 1.2 million people travelled through Dublin Airport during the Christmas period last year. That is a significant number. There is a demand for people to come home to Ireland and for people to travel abroad to their home countries for Christmas. What advice can the Minister of State give to people at this stage? How will travel be managed and constrained, if that is what is intended? The current position is that there should be no non-essential travel. The public health advice is quite clear. This is a dynamic situation and it is changing, but we know that NPHET has been quite consistent with the public health advice. I do not see it changing significantly, but I ask how the Government intends to manage the demand that will exist and to balance it with the public health advice.

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