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

I take the point that there much concern in the travel industry generally and in the tourism sector around wanting to understand, plan for and prepare for timelines around facilitating international travel again. As of yet, the Government has not given a clear timeline around that issue. The Tánaiste said today that he hopes to see travel between Britain and Ireland facilitated to become much freer over the summer months. I hope that is the case. We have a valuable common travel area which we carefully protected through the Brexit process but we are still guided by public health advice on the travel restrictions that are in place. For the EU more generally, the green passport system will be in place in June but it is a policy decision for the State to then decide how and when to implement it here. That system gives a database for us to make policy decisions on the back of.

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