Dáil debates

Tuesday, 25 May 2021

International Travel and Aviation: Statements

 

6:05 pm

Photo of Paul McAuliffePaul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As we have this debate on the digital green certificate, there are airport workers listening who have lost income or their jobs and who are seeking a roadmap forward. I hope that the Government will give them that roadmap on Friday. I worked in Dublin Airport and, as I said in this Chamber last September and again in January, morale there has never been as low. In managing the pandemic, the Government has neither been a zero-Covid zealot nor put the economy before public safety. It has treaded a sort of cautious and pragmatic centre road. It never closed essential travel, despite calls in this House to do so, but it has restricted non-essential travel. That often received criticism from Members on both sides but it remains the correct action to have taken.

Later this week we will speak about mandatory hotel quarantine. It is important to say mandatory hotel quarantine and the digital green certificate are not incompatible concepts, and creating safe zones and or separating zones where there are virulent variants is a sensible way forward for the industry. In the same way we tread the middle road, we will have to move away from mandatory hotel quarantine when it is right to do so. This should not be based on the name of the country but the data about the country.

Many in the aviation sector have been frustrated but just 89 days ago Sinn Féin, People Before Profit, the Social Democrats and Labour all voted for the forced mandatory hotel quarantining of people entering this country from every country, regardless of data. Instead, the Government took public health advice, listing countries from which travellers were required to quarantine in hotels and regularly updating that list. Today, there are just four European countries on that list. Three months on, the zero-Covid zealots seem to have disappeared from the Chamber but I remember when they said we should have mandatory hotel quarantine for all arrivals.

With 45% of the population vaccinated, we must protect the vaccine programme but we must also accept that this gives people the opportunity to have non-essential travel too. As I said in the House on 1 April last, antigen testing will play a part. I also acknowledged a campaign from IALPA and the Recover Irish Aviation Group, whose members I have met. There are 140,000 jobs at stake in the sector and we should pave the way forward for a safe form of travel.

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