Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the proposals and the action that will happen, we hope, in regard to the new EU digital green certificate. The scheme should be seen in the most positive light. It gives us the opportunity to reopen the country. The Oireachtas tourism committee, of which I am Chairman, has had representatives of the tourism recovery task force, the hospitality sector and the Restaurants Association of Ireland before it, sectors that are all hugely dependent on what we can achieve through international tourism and travel. The green certificate will provide an opportunity to set a pathway for the country's reopening.

One of my colleagues talked earlier about how people in this country have a choice when it comes to travel. We live on an island with two different jurisdictions and people have the choice to come in through Belfast. As someone from a Border county, I have seen how people, if they cannot come in through Dublin or have to quarantine when they get there, will look to Belfast as an option. The digital green certificate will eradicate the anomalies that currently arise and provide an opportunity for reopening the country. Its introduction is a positive move and I hope it will happen in July, as has been mooted, or even sooner. I encourage the Minister of State to keep moving in that direction in order to see a reopening of the country.

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