Vaccinated people arriving into Ireland from Britain and the US will not need to self-isolate from Monday.

The changes are being introduced alongside the EU Digital COVID Certificate.

Vaccinated people from Britain and US will not need to self-isolate and will no longer need to sit a negative PCR test before travelling to Ireland

However, unvaccinated people will still need to test and isolate.

Digital COVID Cert

Meanwhile, the EU Digital cert will allow for unrestricted travel across the EU once it is launched on Monday.

The cert is available to people who are fully vaccinated, those who have recovered from COVID and those who sit a negative COVID test.

Hundreds of thousands of fully vaccinated people have been receiving their certs by post and email over recent days.

Meanwhile, people who have recovered from COVID in the last 180 days will be able to get a cert by contacting the new dedicated call centre on 1800 851 504.

The centre will fully open from Monday.

People can also travel by sitting a negative COVID test at an approved centre.

Children under 12 will not need to sit a test and will be free to travel.

"Excited"

The Vice President of the Irish Travel Agents Association, Clare Dunne, said people began thinking about travelling as soon as the certs were issued last week.

“Once they started arriving this week in people’s email boxes people started to get excited,” she said.

“We started to get calls almost straight away from people just enquiring about could they travel this year, could they start making plans for later in the year for next year.

“I think once people had it in their hands and they saw it and they realised, yeah this is actually happening, they then felt comfortable making plans.”

Advisory

From Monday, the Government will also drop its warning to avoid all non-essential travel and instead advise people to “travel safely and in accordance with public health guidance and restrictions.”

Ms Dunne said positive messaging will make people feel more comfortable about travelling abroad.

“I think positive messages would help an awful lot,” she said.

“I did hear a message the other day where the Government were saying you can travel with your EU Digital Cert and that is really important

“Because up to now, the message was, don’t travel, you can’t travel, it is illegal to travel, it is illegal to go to the airport. It is no longer illegal to travel from July 19th. You can travel with your Digital COVID Cert.”

Some upbeat & a cautionary update. Now over 5.1M vaccines administered. 63% of adults are now fully vaccinated & 76% partially. Very high levels of testing yesterday with 8.4% positivity. But hospitalisations & ICU are holding well. Enjoy the sun and take care. @HSELive

— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) July 17, 2021

Last night, the Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan urged unvaccinated people in Ireland to take every precaution as the highest daily case figure in more than five months was reported.

Some 1,173 new cases were announced with 79 coronavirus patients in hospital and 23 in intensive care.

Meanwhile, more than five million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have now been administered in Ireland.

Over 60% of adults are now fully vaccinated, while 75% of adults have had at least one dose.