Ministers talk themselves into knots over quarantine and summer holiday plans

‘NPHET is concerned that, as the number of indigenous cases here decline and Ireland moves towards easing some measures, the relative importance of the risk of importation of cases from overseas increases,” Tony Holohan wrote on May 8, 2020.

The chief medical officer urged the then government to “eliminate as far as possible all non-essential travel”. He said failing to do so “endangered” the resumption of social and economic life.

“A significant increase in the number of cases in Ireland as a result of the importation could have an impact on public compliance with public health guidance and restrictions,” Holohan added all those months ago.

The Government didn’t listen to him then – and they certainly weren’t considering his advice in the months before Christmas when the British variant of Covid made its way on to these shores.

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar also wasn’t reflecting on the public health advice when he drifted into a bizarre diatribe on Claire Byrne Live about people being unable to holiday abroad during the summer if the Government introduced tough quarantine measures for international passengers.

The Tánaiste’s logic is that if mandatory quarantine restrictions are introduced, they would have to be in place for at least a year or until everyone is vaccinated. This, he said, could ruin people’s plans for summer holidays. Who in their right mind is planning a summer holiday at the moment?

And, more importantly, why is the deputy leader of the country going on national television to encourage people to book summer holidays as our health service collapses under the strain of new Covid cases?

Ryanair will no doubt be delighted with the Tánaiste’s contribution, but then he is the Minister for Enterprise.

But aside from Varadkar’s PR pitch for international tourism mid-pandemic, the Government did announce plans to introduce some form of quarantine for international travel.

It will apply to people flying in from countries with new variants of Covid and those who do not produce a negative test on arrival in Ireland. No one else. The Government tells us there are very few people travelling into the country and point to recent data that shows there are currently no cases linked to foreign travel.

But in the same breath it tells us at least two-thirds of all new cases are linked to the British strain of Covid-19, which it is safe to suggest made its way from Kent to the four corners of this island on board either a plane or ferry.

Ministers who dismissed outright any proposals for quarantine last May are now branding calls for a zero-Covid plan as hare-brained.

Speaking yesterday, the Tánaiste said our “naive population” – who opinion polls show are strongly in favour of stronger restrictions on our borders – would not be able to deal with the heartbreak of a zero-Covid strategy not working out properly.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin also talked himself into knots when trying to explain why it was stupid to want to restrict movement into this country.

However, the Taoiseach did say he’s in favour of a so-called ‘two island approach’ involving Britain. So instead of trying to contain the virus on an island of around seven million people, Martin is devising a plan involving another and completely separate island of more than 60 million citizens.

Let’s see how working with a country that just surpassed 100,000 Covid deaths goes. Or perhaps we shouldn’t worry and should focus instead on booking our summer holidays.

Who in their right mind is planning a summer holiday?