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Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said that the Irish should stop traveling abroad during the holidays.
“A lot of people who travel from Ireland travel on vacation. That must end,” he said.
Mr. Martin spoke at the Dáil after harsh criticism of the government’s plan to clamp down on international travel.
“A large number of people traveling from Ireland are traveling on vacation. That must end.”
The Taoiseach has said that the Irish should stop traveling abroad during the holidays | https://t.co/ldSXCWhdh2 pic.twitter.com/V2AGyGGqUH
– RTÉ News (@rtenews) January 27, 2021
The Taoiseach said the new measures will be implemented quickly, but opposition parties said they did not go far enough.
Amid repeated accusations of not having a comprehensive plan to deal with this phase of the pandemic, the Taoiseach insisted that the strategy consisted of a prolonged suppression of the virus.
He told Dáil that when the Covid-19 numbers drop, they should never go back to the levels they are at now.
Martin said there would be more controls by the gardaí at ports and airports.
He added that there would be additional checks to ensure that people “don’t break the rules” when crossing the border.
He said: “It’s a prolonged suppression of the virus; when we drop the numbers, we have to keep them low.
However, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said people are feeling the weight of this crisis like never before and called the government’s new plan a series of half-measures.
She said the government is putting hope mostly on people who self-isolate after returning from abroad, but a universal mandatory hotel quarantine system is required.
The co-leader of the Social Democrats, Catherine Murphy, requested evidence to support the government’s claim that international travel is not a major factor in the spread of the virus today.
She said the virus variant did not arrive in the Southeast, but rather by plane or ship.
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On the other hand, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said that the Government plans to implement the mandatory quarantine in hotels within a few weeks.
He said they can expand the measure to include other groups of incoming travelers if requested by the European Union or as part of any coordinated effort with Northern Ireland.
Speaking on RTE’s News at One, Minister Varadkar said that only a small number would initially face mandatory quarantine in hotels, but that the government wants to have the ability to apply the measure more widely if the situation calls for it.
He said that restrictions on international travel are not the “silver bullet” as 1,000 people a day contract Covid-19 and only 1% or less of those cases are the result of international travel.
Minister Varadkar said the key to reducing the number of viruses is staying home.
He said the government can use the Citywest hotel for mandatory quarantine, but plans to establish a hotel near Dublin airport with trained staff and implement a quarantine system.
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