Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is right that there is a legal and a public health dimension to this but there is also a purely practical dimension to it. The reality is that we will be opening up travel with the United Kingdom and there are transatlantic planes, which used to service Shannon Airport, that are now flying from Manchester to North America. The Minister is acutely aware of this, having an airport in his constituency. Once we have an open and common travel area with the United Kingdom, it is simply senseless if planes are taking off from North America and coming into the United Kingdom for us to not allow planes to go from Ireland to North America. People will simply travel via the United Kingdom and via Belfast if necessary. All we are doing is strangling our economy to no public health benefit if people are travelling anyway, which they will do sooner rather than later. I urge the Minister to keep the practicalities in mind as well as the public health concerns because sometimes some of the public health advice seems to be completely devoid of practical effect. It is not always so but sometimes it is, including the example of the advice on antigen testing, given the European Union position on it.

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