Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Senators who made a contribution here today on this critical issue. I really appreciate the Senators' comments. I have heard their concerns loud and clear.

On mandatory quarantine, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, outlined earlier today that the Government has introduced a Bill to provide for mandatory quarantine in hotels for travellers arriving in Ireland from certain designated states. All travellers arriving into Ireland who have been in the designated countries within the previous 14 days will be required to quarantine. This requirement will include those who enter Ireland via Northern Ireland. This measure is a necessary part of protecting our public health against the importation of new variants of Covid. It will clearly have an impact on further suppressing international travel to Ireland and will, therefore, have a negative impact on an already struggling sector. It will be challenging to balance requirements such as these, which are needed now to protect public health, with supporting our critical connectivity with the world. I am determined that our connectivity must be protected as much as possible, even when passenger numbers are currently low. We must take steps to be ready to build it back strongly when the time is right. I reassure Senators that we will engage with our aviation stakeholders on achieving this. I will be meeting with the National Civil Aviation Development Forum next week as part of that engagement. My Department will also continue to work with our colleagues across Europe. We will continue to provide support to the aviation sector and maintain a strong base from which we can recover when public health conditions allow. I look forward to our citizens being able to travel more freely in the future and to welcoming international tourists to our country once again. We need to do our best to ensure that when the time is right our aviation industry will be ready to recover.