The travel green list has gone from the 'farcical situation' of having a country with no airports on it to now having no countries at all, travel expert Eoghan Corry has said.
From Monday, no countries will remain on the travel green list.
The list currently consists of Cyprus, Finland, Latvia and Liechtenstein, but all four countries will now be removed amid surging coronavirus cases around Europe.
The Government has said it plans to sign up to a new ‘traffic light’ system for travel between EU states when it is approved by the EU Council of Ministers next week.
Eoghan Corry, editor with Travel Extra, spoke to Newstalk Breakfast about the latest development.
He said: "This started off with a fairly farcical situation - a country [Liechtenstein] with no airports on our green list. Now we have no countries at all.
"I mentioned early on a green list for Craggy Island... and it does now appear Father Dougal was put in charge of it.
"It does look like [the Government] think it's a good idea to have the European traffic light system, but they are going to pick bits of it."
However, he said there appears to be reluctance to fully adopt the system.
Traffic light system
Under the proposed EU travel system, countries would be designated green, orange or red.
Green countries would be reporting a 14-day coronavirus incidence rate of 25 per 100,000 cases - but no countries are currently under 25.
A rate of under 50 would be needed for a country to be designated orange, with any other countries designated red.
For red countries, people arriving in a country would either need to quarantine or take a COVID-19 test.
However, Mr Corry said we're still a long way off tests in airports.
He also explained: "There's a third metric - more than 3% positive [tests]. We don't seem to be applying that.
"The fourth thing is the regions - it isn't clear that we're going to be applying this by region.
"It doesn't look like we're properly going to align with this. It looks like a soundbite, and next week we could be back in the same situation with no panacea for the travel industry."
He said that leaves a 'big question mark' over Cork and Shannon Airport, after Ryanair threatened to shut their bases in those airports if Ireland doesn't adopt the EU system.
