Mandatory Hotel Quarantine
€24.7m was spent on Mandatory Hotel Quarantine, which detected 0.39% of all cases detected in the State during its period of operation. MHQ is a costly but largely futile measure to be seen to be doing something.
International visitors to Ireland
The Government’s use of Dáil time today to tell us about reopening the tourism and aviation sectors never addressed the significant deterrents that exist for international tourists.
Opposing Mandatory Hotel Quarantining
Speaking against Mandatory Hotel Quarantining today, I acknowledged the threat posed by variants. However, the current system does little to combat that threat.
Taoiseach on Mandatory Hotel Quarantine
How can the Government defend a policy of mandatory hotel quarantine – to the European Commission or before the Courts – that it stated to be impossible to enforce here and not proportionate?
Tánaiste on Mandatory Hotel Quarantine
When a Government knowingly breaches citizens’ rights because it’s politically expedient to do so, it loses the moral authority to compel people to adhere to the measures it adopts.
McNamara critical of Government’s Mandatory Hotel Quarantine strategy
Clare Independent T.D. Michael McNamara has criticised the Government’s Mandatory Hotel Quarantine strategy, which he described as “a half-baked exercise in optics” and a “flawed measure” in the context of an unchecked border with Northern Ireland and when the majority of persons arriving in the state whether by air, sea or over land are not tested for variants of Covid-19.
Read MoreQuarantining and opposition stance
Opposition parties complain about the obvious consequences of policies they advocate. Speaking on the Health (Amendment) Bill 2021 on 25th February, I warned that making Belfast Airport the busiest airport on the island would be only thing the Bill would achieve.
Ryanair routes announced at Belfast International
The Government, supported by most of the Opposition, is strangling the aviation and tourism sector in this State, and driving business to Northern Ireland. We’re told the virus doesn’t recognise borders. Neither does the Government or most of the Opposition. Businesses have to.
RTÉ – New Guidelines for Covid-19 Testing and Quarantine of Air Travellers
I spoke on Drivetime RTE about new Guidelines for Covid-19 Testing and Quarantine of Air Travellers, published jointly by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).