Leo Varadkar offers up-to-date information on travel abroad, as he confirms that tests at the airport ‘could reduce the risk’

More air travel should be allowed if “we are serious about living with Covid-19,” Tanaiste said.

Leo Varadkar believes that we may have to allow sports teams and individuals to travel abroad for work or to visit relatives living in other countries.

The government’s plan on how to combat the deadly virus for the next nine months will be published next week, with travel guidelines included.

Ireland currently has 10 countries on our green list: Estonia, Finland, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Slovakia, which means that people from these countries do not have to quarantine themselves here.

Speaking about travel restrictions, he told RTE’s Morning Ireland that rapid tests at the airport could help reduce risk.

He said: “We have very strict rules, probably only Iceland and Hungary have more strict rules than we do in the European Union.

“I think if we are going to live with the virus and if we are serious about living with the virus, that means allowing more air travel, it means allowing the necessary business travel, it means allowing sports teams to travel, maybe in some cases, even people visiting family and friends.

“And two of the things that we will consider, and like I said, I just mean to consider in the context of the new plan, is the possibility of rapid tests.

“We see that testing at Heathrow, test results in a few minutes or 30 minutes, does not eliminate the risk, but it does reduce it.

“Or also, opting for an initiative led by the European Health Commission based on the work carried out by the ECDC, that is the European public health body, which would have a different view on trips to NPHET, and the European Safety Authority Aerial and that would have a European map that would be updated every week with green, amber and red areas and that is something we could choose “.