EU Urges States To Open Up Borders By The End Of June

Ryanair today (Fri 5 June) called on Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to scrap Ireland’s ineffective visitor quarantine from the end of June, on the same day when the European Commission is calling on EU members to lift all EU border restrictions by the end of June.

For a visitor quarantine to be effective, inbound passengers at ports and airports need to be “detained” at their point of arrival. The Irish Government cannot and will not stop visitors from mixing on public transport or in supermarkets, by which time they could have spread the Covid virus all over the Irish bus or taxi network even before they arrive at their destination address. Ireland’s visitor quarantine is also defective as it completely excludes visitors from the UK which currently has the highest Covid infection rate in Europe.

EC Home Affairs Commissioner, Ylva Johansson, today called on the EU members to reopen borders “as soon as possible” in a coordinated way. The Commissioner also pointed to a recent report from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) which advises against border restrictions which damage Europe’s economies.

Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Greece have all removed travel restrictions on visitors from the end of June. Ryanair asks the Taoiseach why he is delaying the restart of Irish tourism and enforcing useless quarantine measures despite Ireland having one of the best EU records in combating and defeating Covid-19.

Ryanair’s CEO Eddie Wilson said:

“If the EU is ready to reopen, why does Ireland insist on adding obstacles with an ineffective and useless visitor quarantine?

Ryanair is going back flying on 1 July next with over 1,000 daily flights from Ireland to destinations all over Europe, following the healthy air travel protocols recommended by EASA and the ECDC, which assure passengers of safe and healthy flying. These measures are based on expert evidence as opposed to useless visitor quarantines.

We call on the Taoiseach to follow the EU advice and agree on a coordinated reopening of Ireland to visitors without any visitor restrictions from the end of June”.