Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, and the Taoiseach for the comprehensive report on the European Council meeting. I will hone in on three aspects. The first is Belarus. In the past 48 hours I have signed paperwork and been in contact with an NGO called Libereco. I am one of a group of European parliamentarians who have adopted, if one likes, Belarusian prisoners. There are 503 of them who have been detained for speaking out and protesting against the Lukashenko regime. I have adopted Siarhei Hatskevich. He is a 17-year-old high school student who faces three years' imprisonment for his actions protesting against the despotic regime that has run his country for many years. That adoption entails speaking when I can in this Chamber about his plight and writing many letters across Europe and beyond to try to secure his freedom.

Second, I will speak on Covid. That was well covered at last week's European Council meeting. I have been looking at our statistics in Ireland. Two thirds of adults have received their first dose and under half of the adult population has been fully vaccinated. Some 330,000 vaccines are being administered per week. It is going well. On 19 July, international travel will be possible with the digital green certificate. The public health advice from 19 July onward is that the fully vaccinated can leave our shores, go around Europe and the world and enjoy a holiday overseas or travel for any reason. That is the guidance. In the case of those who are not vaccinated, they can still travel, while taking their own precautions. There are risk levels and certain boxes one has to tick.

Would that guidance for international travel not dovetail and fit well, over the coming weeks, with domestic hospitality? What if we took the available medical advice and told the fully vaccinated they can go wherever they want in this country. That should be a given. For those not fully vaccinated, there is a certain risk level. I would argue it is low at the moment, given that so much of our population is vaccinated, given that the key metric all along was deaths and they have gone way down and given that the older cohorts have been vaccinated. Covid has become more manageable. The criteria we will apply from 19 July in allowing people to travel internationally also would work quite well on the domestic front. Those who are vaccinated can go ahead. Those who are not vaccinated could also enjoy those freedoms but they would carry a certain risk on their shoulders. That would be a sensible way forward.

Finally, I will make a point on fishermen. They docked up here this day last week. There is only a small number of trawlers operating out of County Clare and I do not claim to be an expert on the fishing industry but I took time out to board a vessel and speak with the skipper and crew. The time has come to push back in Europe on off-coast fishing. There is an equivalent of Flightradar24 called Shipfinder. It shows, at any given time, a flotilla of ships of the west coast of Ireland, all registered to Spain and fishing in our waters. There needs to be a big pushback at European level to secure the future for our fishermen.

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