Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. It is certainly something I can discuss with the Minister for Transport, Deputy Ryan. The expert group reported in to me on 1 April and its report contained recommendations across a number of sectors. The way we are approaching it in government is that line Ministers are exploring what can be done in their sectors. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, and I, for example, are working on rapid testing, much of it in meat processing, while the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, and I have been discussing rapid testing in higher education, etc. This one would fall within the remit of the Minister, Deputy Ryan, obviously, with public health advice.

I would urge caution on aviation before we are ready to go with the digital green certificate. We have very strong measures in place in terms of international travel at present. We have the strongest measures in place in Europe by quite a bit. In fact, the UK would be the closest to ours with its own mandatory hotel quarantine. I would be happy to discuss it with the Minister, Deputy Ryan, to see if it is something he wanted to pick up with the aviation industry, with that caveat that we have very strong protections in place for very good reasons. On the Deputy's point, however, my hope is we will fully engage with the digital green certificate and we might see an opening of travel from July.

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