James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

From my understanding, much of the reporting has been that many of the negotiations on US-EU travel were with the Schengen area and Ireland is not part of that because of the common travel area. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten me and the people who are listening as to whether Ireland will move in lockstep with the Schengen area if there is to be a full reopening of US travel. This is in the context of the fact that there are more than 160,000 people, which is an incredible number, employed by US foreign direct investment in our country. Even in our shared county of Cork we can clearly see that level of investment, whether it is in places such as Carrigtwohill, Little Island or in the Minister's constituency in Ringaskiddy or in Apple in Cork North-Central. There are tens of thousands of people in our county working in US companies. Not only is it important from a leisure point of view to have US visitors coming to Ireland and spending money in our local economy but there is also the foreign direct investment aspect to this. It is deeply damaging to our economy and to aviation in Ireland, which is critical to the economic recovery in the post-Covid era.

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