The Government must explain why fully vaccinated people are being “locked up” and prevented from travelling abroad, according to Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson.
The Government expects to ease restrictions on international travel from July 19th – when Ireland introduces the EU Digital Green Certificate.
It will allow people travel anywhere in the EU provided they are fully vaccinated, have fully recovered from COVID within the last 180 days or undergo a negative COVID test in the 72 hours before travelling.
According to the European Commission, 17 EU countries are already using the travel certs.
On The Hard Shoulder this evening, Ryanair CEO said fully vaccinated people in Ireland should be able to get the cert straight away.
“What we are concentrating on is the fact that a third of people in Ireland have now been double-vaccinated,” he said.
“Why are they being locked up? Why can they not travel?
“The minister says they have the app and it is ready to switch on … switch it on. Let those people travel.”
Vaccination
Mr Wilson said he has already received both vaccine doses – but was forced to get two PCR tests to travel to Italy last week.
He suggested authorities were having trouble verifying whether people had recovered from the virus or sat a negative test – but called for the system to be fully rolled out to vaccinated people.
“They have signed up for the EU system. The system says three things – you are either vaccinated, you have had a PCR test or you have recovered,” he said.
“It looks like they are having huge difficulty getting the PCR tests into the app and it looks like they are having huge difficulty in getting all the doctors results from people who have recovered.
“So, leave that aside; come back to that and focus on the people who are double vaccinated.
“When I came back into Ireland it was like going back in to North Korea. I had a border force asking me where I was, what I was doing and do I live here – I mean it is extraordinary.
“If you are double vaccinated you should be able to travel.”
EU Digital Green Certificate
He said the Government must now decide if it is following EU travel rules or not.
“For the last 15 months we have etched out our own policy here completely disconnected from Europe,” he said.
“Travel within Europe … the Scandinavians, the Germans are already travelling; the Spanish and the Italians are pretty much going to be back to normal by July – but people can have no certainty here at the moment.
“We need to have a decision here. What is the excuse? What is the medical advice that says double-vaccinated people cannot travel out of Ireland?”
Mr Wilson also questioned why people would go to the trouble of getting vaccinated if the Government is going to flip-flop on the bonus it offers.
“What was the point in double-vaccinating people?” he asked. “What was the point in standing in the vaccination queue for them to now say, ‘well, now we are not so sure about that.’”
Bottom of the pile
Earlier this week, it emerged that Ireland is currently 'bottom of the pile' when it comes to the return of aviation.
Around 18,000 European flights were recorded by Eurocontrol on Monday - down around 48% of what would be seen during a normal summer.
However, Irish traffic was still down by around three quarters.
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