Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has acknowledged there is some confusion about the Government’s travel ‘green list’ but has denied that the Coalition made a “hames” of its advice on the issue.
Speaking after the list was published late last night following a Cabinet meeting, he said the overall message was still that people should not take holidays abroad.
Mr Coveney said the Government’s approach to travel was the same as its approach to all Covid-19 matters, being “really cautious” with the aim of protecting the people of Ireland.
However, he said there were still 50,000 people leaving the State every week and the Department of Foreign Affairs had an obligation to highlight the different risk levels of the countries to which they were travelling.
“I can accept there has been some confusion, that’s why it’s important to make a definitive statement. But the overall message remains - the safest thing to do is stay at home,” he said. “Ireland cannot close itself off. We will have to learn to live with this virus.”
Quarantine
Fifteen countries and territories have been included on the green list and people travelling to and from these destinations will not have to go through a mandatory period of quarantine when returning from them.
Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco and San Marino have been included on the list and deemed as safe for travel with “normal precautions”.
However, the Government has been accused of creating confusion as in its statement listing the countries it said “the safest thing to do is not to travel”.
“The pandemic is not over and the public health advice remains the same,” it added.
The 15 locations chosen have rates of coronavirus cases that are similar or lower than that currently in the State. However, popular destinations for Irish tourists including France, Spain, Portugal, the UK and the US did not, as expected, make it on to the list.
Mr Coveney told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that the Government would be monitoring countries and specific regions within countries that may become hot Covid-19 spots and would find ways to deal with the risk of travel to and from those areas.
Monitoring
In it’s statement when publishing the list, the Government said it “would continue with plans to strengthen the existing measures for monitoring passengers who arrive into Ireland, including the introduction of an Electronic Passenger Locator Form, enhanced follow-up procedures, a call centre operated by the DAA (the State-owned airport operator) and a proposed testing regime for symptomatic passengers at airports and ports”.
“Processes to restrict flight or passenger travel in certain circumstances will also be explored,” it added.
Mr Coveney on Wednesday said the further measures could include people from those areas taking a Covid-19 test before they come to the State and random Covid-19 testing at airports for passengers arriving from non-green list countries.
The Minister rejected a claim by the chief executive of the Irish Travel Agents Association Pat Dawson, who said that nothing has changed as a result of the publication of the green list as the advice remained not to travel abroad unless it is essential.
“It’s not true that it hasn’t changed,” he said.
The Minister said he expected travel insurance companies would respond to the official advice, but that the safest thing to do was not to take holidays abroad.
Some of the locations on the list cannot be reached directly from the State and Mr Coveney said the World Health Organisation (WHO) did not have a significant concern with transit airports. He said it was the destination and country of origin that were considered important.
He said there were no instances of the spread of the virus by people who came from a country on the green list.
Compensation
Meanwhile, the chief executive of the Consumers’ Association of Ireland has called on the Government to set up a compensation fund for people who followed Government advice and did not travel abroad for holidays.
Dermot Jewell said the position at present was that “if they don’t go, they take the loss”.
“Consumers have been left at the deep end,” he told RTÉ’s Today with Sarah McInerney show.
He said consumers were not receiving refunds from airlines if they adhere to Government advice on non-essential travel. He said people were awaiting refunds and vouchers from airlines, but they have also lost money paid to hotels and car hire companies with no possibility of claiming this back on their travel insurance.
Mr Jewelll said a compensation fund should offer “some proportion” of compensation for people who lost out after following the Government advice.