Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I think every Department has a role in this matter. Regarding international travel and quarantine, the Department of Justice has a key role in terms of Garda checkpoints at Dublin Airport and how we manage border control. Our Department has a key role. We have just rolled out a whole new antigen testing scheme for hauliers travelling to and from France. On the passenger locator form, we got stuck in with regard to using the expertise of the Dublin Airport Authority to get the call centre to try to operate that. In the end, however, the Department of Health has the final say. That is appropriate because if we are going to follow public health advice it has to make the call in respect of the final measures, not just on our public health system but also in terms of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC.

In terms of what we have been doing this past year, we were following the European Commission's traffic light system. We did that not because it was from the European Commission - it was reciprocal - but because it was the ECDC advice. It will be critical in the coming days. I understand it is due to report on Monday with advice on how countries manage the variants. We are best following that advice because-----

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