Hello Ireland! Of course we are quarantining
Dublin Airport is getting busy again, but quarantine rules don’t seem to be a priority for many visitors f lying in – apart from the loved-up couples that is...
DUBLIN Airport was returning to normal this week but quarantining wasn’t a priority for many of those who were arriving in the country.
Every person interviewed by the Irish Mail on Sunday last Wednesday went straight into the community and mixed with people here after stepping off a flight.
This is despite the requirement for travellers to quarantine for 14 days after arriving from abroad.
During lockdown, only 400 people were coming through Dublin Airport every day but that number had jumped to 4,000 by last Monday. By Wednesday, when Ryanair resumed 40% of its schedule, the figure had risen to 10,900.
Most people the MoS spoke to were coming from the UK, which
‘I booked when I saw Ryanair opened up’
still has one of the highest rates of Covid-19 in Europe. Yvonne Bremer had travelled from London to reunite with her partner in Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh. She got off her flight from London Gatwick and planned to get a bus into Dublin and then another bus to Enniskillen.
This was after filling in a mandatory passenger locator form to say where they would be in Ireland for the next two weeks. ‘It’s been 110 days since I’ve seen him and counting. I wasn’t nervous about flying here at all. I followed all the procedures, hand sanitising and masks,’ Ms Bremer told the MoS.
‘I don’t know about quarantine. I don’t think I have to do that because I’m going to the North.’
Two young women who had travelled here from Amsterdam said they were just here until this weekend and had no intention of quarantining. ‘What would be the point of that?’ said one of the women who had booked the trip with her friend in February.
Roy Gotink had also arrived from Amsterdam to visit his Brazilian girlfriend Vanuela, who lives in Cork and had driven up to collect him. He could barely contain his excitement at seeing her. ‘We’ve been apart just a month because she was with me at home before that,’ he said. ‘It’s just really great to be here. I booked the flight when I saw Ryanair opening up – that’s why I came this week.’
Asked would he be quarantining, he gave a big grin, winked and said: ‘Yes of course.’
Officially, restrictions on international travel are likely to remain in place until July 20 at the earliest, RTE reported yesterday. This includes the requirement to quarantine for 14 days after arriving from abroad.
The restrictions had been due to be eased next Thursday, July 9. But concern about a possible second wave of the virus in other countries has prompted advice to the Government that they should remain in place for now.
RTÉ reported that the Covid-19 committee will recommend to Cabinet on Monday that the current rules be extended until July 20, when they will be reviewed. Both former chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan and Health Minister Stephen Donnelly have expressed fears that foreign travel could cause a resurgence of Covid-19.
Outside the airport on Wednesday were Fay and John Hush who were in transit from Spain to Canada. They had walked off their Ryanair flight from Spain and were heading to catch the bus to the nearby Maldron Hotel where they would stay overnight before travelling on the next day. They had been locked down in Spain since April.
‘We were only supposed to be there for two weeks; we’re looking
to get home,’ Mr Hush said.
‘It was a proper lockdown [in Spain] – you literally couldn’t go outside the door. We were just in the holiday apartment we rented and we had to stay at our own expense.
‘Will we be quarantining here? Well, we’re just going to the hotel, we won’t be going out. We’ll have our masks on.’ Ryanair passengers who travelled into Ireland this week have complained that although there were empty seats on their flight, all passengers were bunched together. Keir Webb and his partner Joe Wilkinson travelled from London and found themselves sitting abreast with other passengers in close proximity, despite there being free seats on the flight. Mr Webb said: ‘We just got up and moved in to the empty seats and then we felt a lot more comfortable.’
Ryanair declined to comment.