[ad_1]
The government’s draconian blanket ban on travel from Britain is set to be lifted.
Families with loved ones living in the UK could see them again starting next week, when the ban on flights from Britain is planned to be relaxed.
Transport Minister Eamon Ryan told the Irish Mirror that he will switch to a regulation-based travel system instead of the blanket ban.
He said: “We will use health regulations to control travel instead of making blanket bans.”
The EU Commission is working on this at the moment and Mr Ryan said that this will replace our travel ban when they are agreed next week.
Ryan said: “We are still going to have trips between the UK and we know we have to do it for freight transport and it’s not just for the UK land bridge to the mainland, 80% of the transport we have comes to and from the UK, and for some companies, air transport and ferry transport are vital.
“If you look at the papers, there was a repatriation flight last night and I was interested in the reports that came out of it.
“The first lady was someone whose son had died and she buried him in London, so are we going to say for the duration of this that under such circumstances her son cannot be buried?
“We want to get the protocols and safe ways to do it, but there will be incidents where people have to do it.
“I’ll give you another example, a very practical example, on the energy side, we require expert engineers to come in regularly to maintain and service our power plants.
“That is just one example that I know of.
“I’m dealing with it because it’s on my desk.
“On a regular basis, we have emergency workers to keep here because they maintain vital infrastructure.
“We had to have an emergency response to the announcement from the UK government on Saturday night and on Sunday afternoon we had our emergency response, we were going to have to shut down, ban travel and stop flights etc.
“But that approach cannot go on forever and one day because we have to manage our entire gamut of other priorities.
“So what we will probably do is introduce more detailed regulations on all trips so that we do it in a very safe way.
“This is what the European Commission recommends, they are saying that instead of having a total and generalized ban, it is regulated for specific circumstances, very specific circumstances.”
He added: “In the next two or three months we will have to keep those essential workers and those essential reasons why there will be travel, but regulated very strictly for health reasons.
“That’s what the European Commission says, that health regulations are used to control travel instead of making blanket bans.”
[ad_2]