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TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has said that ”at this moment people should wait” before booking flights home to Ireland for Christmas, but added that clarity on that issue and other arrangements for Christmas would be given before Level 5 ends.
Speaking on the News at One with Bryan Dobson, Martin said that the government will give people notice “before the end of November” of what the plans for the Christmas period will be “so that people can make preparations”.
But he added that it would not be like Christmas last year: “I get the sense from public they know it’ll be different, that not everybody – if I use the phrase – ‘will be on the lash’ for Christmas, and we won’t have office parties that people might have had in previous years.”
He said that he did believe churches would be open for Christmas week, saying that the weeks leading up to Christmas were also important and that it was important for people’s mental health.
When asked whether Gardaí would be knocking on people’s doors on Christmas Eve to enforce Level 3 restrictions, Martin said “that’s not going to happen”.
The Fianna Fáil leader said that the “exit plan” from Level 5 is still being worked on, but that there could be a staged approach to move out of Level 5.
Martin said the preference was to come out of Level 5 nationally, but said that areas such as Donegal were a “concern”. He said that more effort was needed, “from a communications point of view”, to reduce the cases in that county down further.
Donegal’s 14-day incidence rate is currently 281.4 cases per 100,000 – a slight decrease from 286.4 cases per 100,000 last week, and far above the national rate of 145.
There has been confusion about what preparations should be made about the Christmas period, after Tánaiste Leo Varadkar told the Dáil that people should wait before booking flights home to Ireland, while the Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan went a step further last night, saying that flying home for Christmas was not essential.
“We think people should avoid non-essential travel and continue to do so for the foreseeable future,” Dr Holohan said, adding that inter-county travel would be decided on at the end of the month.
“That includes the Christmas period, and we would feel that the kind of travel that would normally happen at Christmas time, people coming back to spend time with their loved ones, [...] we have to regard as non-essential for this Christmas.”
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Ryanair having a 12.99 black Friday sale today only for December Travel, I don’t think many will be waiting for Micheáls go ahead
@David Lee: They will release a video of flight coming back from Magaluf from a few years ago to frighten the life out of us before they tell us people can not come home because this is what the flights will be like if we give the go ahead
@Maurice O Neill:
It is more scary than it was in April.. Mainland Europe in pretty bad way…
Ireland is half of the case growth of Denmark and lower than Norway. Norway were always a European top performer, big congrats to Finland who are half us… Must be something in those dogs…
@Cowboy Paddy: we are doing amazingly well despite all the nay-sayers and conspiracy theories
@David Lee: vote on nphets government with your feet. They cant stop all of us!
They’ll be advising us what Christmas presents to buy next
Why would anyone postpone buying flights when they can’t legally prevent anyone travelling home. It’s only advice. Just remember to fill in the form at the airport – the only mandatory requirement relating to the travel restrictions
@Anna Anna: Many people myself are happy to postpone. We don’t need to be threatened with legal repercussions, we have a brain and do the right thing!
@Wreck Tangle: well done you. Not everyone considers seeing their family at Christmas non-essential
@Wreck Tangle: sheepeople
@Anna Anna:
It’s probably the most essential thing that has kept people going this year
@Wreck Tangle: exactly. But it is advice after all. Some people will want to risk contracting, or worse still passing on, the disease but that’s their prerogative at the end of the day. The state isn’t forcing anyone to do anything. The outcome will be determined by the actions of all of us.
@Anna Anna:
It will be a double trip, have to goto Grandad’s funeral in January.
@Jurga Moylan: tell that to the people like Wreck Tangle. Many people like him seem to get a sense of superiority from thinking they are ‘doing the right thing’ because they complying with all of NPHET’S suggestions, no matter how non-sensical. If Tony turned around tomorrow and said he’d had a change of mind and travel home was allowed as he now considers it essential, he’d be the first to book a flight.
@Cowboy Paddy: can I get the lotto numbers off you too Paddy?
@Anna Anna: Some of us reckon the best thing to do is to follow the prevailing best available advice, which is subject to change obviously. Sometimes that’s nonsensical but it’s more consistently dependable than anonymous Journal comments and screaming Twitter epidemiologists.
@Wreck Tangle: no one is threatening anybody with legal repercussions? If you don’t want to travel then don’t
easy peasy really
@Ribeard Ó Fiachna: you agree it’s sometimes nonsensical and say you still follow it because it’s more consistently dependable. Lovely. You are NPHET’S target audience
@Anna Anna: or online https://cvd19plf-prod1.powerappsportals.com/en-us/
@PaulOMahoney Irish: again PaulOMahoney Irish, I can’t see your messages after I muted you in September. Replying to my stats comment at 3am in the morning that you would track down my IP and expose me. Very unstable behaviour. Again not sure who you think I am but there’ll be no great expose. You seem to be very obsessed with attacking me
@Anna Anna: I don’t know how you weren’t blocked with such threatening comments as the ones in this link under my comment
https://www.thejournal.ie/coronavirus-latest-figures-ireland-15-5216030-Sep2020/
@Anna Anna: exactly, treat Fooohan & Co with the contempt they deserve.
@PaulOMahoney Irish: “.. an enemy to the citizens of my country”. Wow, maybe time to put the bottle down.
@Anna Anna: no they won’t
@JedBartlett: No bottle here Dude, just my honest opinion.
@Wreck Tangle: i did my bit 200% now i am going home for christmas. Nothing will stop me.
@PaulOMahoney Irish: And finally I asked repeatedly in a polite way for Anna to interpretation of the figures. After she got traction and the figures began to worsen by way of hospitalisations and ICU admission her narrative became clear she didn’t agree with the figures that were being issued on a daily basis and then began to try and belittle those who disagreed with her, evidence of which is on this thread.
So, if I have upset her its not going to upset me one jot.
@Anna Anna: Not everybody can tell the difference between something they HAVE TO do and something they just WANT TO do.
People should book their flights now and make their own mind up whether or not to travel.
If they wait until early December the prices will be extortionate.
@Cookie: I wonder if its lost on him that the majority of the people he’s telling not to come home for Christmas were actually driven out of the country him and his party, when they contrived with the bankers to destroy the economy and tear families apart
@Cookie: yes, tell nphet government where to go. Do it, they can’t stop all of us
Your ok to come home if you go Picking Strawberries for a few weeks while you are here
We were told that the lockdown would be for 6 weeks with option to have a review after 4 weeks to get less restrictions.
The lockdown would be lifted to level 3 if the r rate would be 0.5.
He is now speaking of staged reopening and regional restrictions. Noone can tell me that the man is the right person to give this country security.
Give us one clear statement, link your level to r rates or cases per 100k in the county or something else… but stand then to your world and don’t try to change the rules all the time
@Vanessa:
Have you seen rates it the rest of Europe…
If you intend coming for Christmas could you practice a vacant disheveled look for the funeral of your grandparent… Something like “don’t know how this could have happened” look..
Remember take no personal responsibility for your actions… Say things like ‘How could we have known?’, ‘I had to come back’ and the all time classic ‘What would they know?’
@Cowboy Paddy: Ah will you stop, old grandpa has more chance of being in a car accident so less of the scaremongering please.
@Cowboy Paddy: people coming home for Christmas are not required by law to visit their grandparents. The vast, vast, vast majority of people coming home are well aware of what’s going on and will do so responsibly. Your comment speaks more about your own inability to be responsible, so much so that you require your hand to be held by government to know how to be responsible. Sure, there will be clowns. But, look at Dublin today with locals gathering in parks drinking. Which will spread a virus quicker? Responsible travellers or irresponsible park drinkers? Yet you don’t mention them.
@Cowboy Paddy: I haven’t even mentioning travelling but commented on the other things he has said.
Your comment is just misplaced. And quite frankly with future testing going on also otherwise concerning.
FF are the main reason so many are living abroad.
@joe oneill: Exactly! No jobs when we graduated and had to go further afield. I have to be honest and while it might sound melodramatic this is the final straw with this government. Myself and a lot of friends living away feel abandoned as part of the diaspora. Christmas is the most important time of the year for my family and has only become more important since I left.
And to think that people haven’t already booked their flights is mad – I booked mine in July which is around the usual time I would book – I’ve been known to book in June some years. Then when it looked like they wouldn’t go ahead (Aer Lingus into Shannon) I booked my back up flights in September.
1)Testing at airports finally coming in, should have happened from the beginning!
2)If family members have a Covid test before travelling home then they should be allowed to travel home!
3)If traveling from a red area then negative Covid test before entry into Ireland,stay in family bubbles for 5 days then get PCR test here.Surely this would be ok?
@Nuala Mc Namara: This makes alot more sense the what Leaky Leo and co are saying.
@Nuala Mc Namara: that makes sense, so it probably won’t be followed through.
@Nuala Mc Namara: I concur, but when I read the comments here by some they appear to be willing to go against things like restricting movements for the first few days and while awaiting test results.. .. I think we should require a pre flight negative test LAMP or PCR and if a LAMP test then a PCR test 5 days after arrived.
But read the price of the tests? Many will not pay the 149 or more to be tested.
Something else to be considered, with the whole EU travel system. If one has a pre flight test and it is positive then I would be denied boarding and stuck in the country where tested. The real temptation is to ignore and tell no one of the test result and fly home… Remember these tests are private and it is not clear if the results can be made available to authorities.
The thing is there are too many ways around the systems for those that do not want to comply and I suspect we well see a few large family outbreaks where people just come home for 5 or 10 days as I cannot see them not visiting all family and friends on such a short visit and certainly not staying within a family bubble unless that bubble includes 100 relatives – much and all as I would like people to be able to travel I find it hard to create a model that is safe for all.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: many will not pay the €149 to be tested…. if say it’s more like no one’s going to pay that… so good luck with that.
@Nuala Mc Namara: This seems logical to me – it’s straight forward and allows people to visit family as long as they do what’s best for everyone and take some basic precautions…but yeah, Niall makes some great points as well.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: If the test results had to be put on the Covid-19 Passenger Location Form that has to be filled up before you travel to Ireland then travel would be safer.
I wonder when Ireland comes under EU ‘traffic light system’ ,at end of month, will the forms be changed to include a question re Covid test ?
I note that those traveling from region which is ‘orange’,that travellers don’t have to restrict movements if they have a negative PCR test in the 3 days before they arrive in Ireland.
Is little Mickey allowing us to leave the country to see families abroad over the Xmas & new year??
@cill123: is he allowing us to leave the county?
@cill123: stop being a drama queen
Why does the Journal not post my comments when I use a jumbled “F” word referring to Varadkar and Martin ?
@Tony Kennedy: fcnk…. There ya go ;)
Suit them better to stop cross border from 6 counties, place is almost double if not treble what we have in the 26 counties.
@Barty: many more people crossing from the south into the north to do shopping at the moment. All retail open, no restrictions on what’s being sold and a weak pound. It will increase in the coming weeks especially as hospitality reopens in the north
Yea that’s right Mehole!
They had months to spend the shutdown 50bilion of debt on building up health care but instead they shutdown shutdown and creating debt with nothing to show for it.
He said guards won’t be knocking on peoples doors, enforcing Level 3.
Does this mean that politicians can tell the police force what they can and cannot do? If he can, then this fits the definition of a police state.
@Virus-free Turkey: Of course they can. A police state is where the police enforce their own laws and not the laws of the elected representatives.
Watch the price of flights rocket up….
@Eddie Michael: Aer Lingus Heathrow to Cork… nearly £700. Nearly all booked already
Why does he not give the advice at the end of December?
Does anyone know if the curve has been flattened!
A few weeks, we know more in a few, weeks, just a few weeks more!
Imagine a dictator trying to tell it’s citizens aboard that they are now stateless.
@Joeohah: He’s not telling them they’re stateless. Hysterical nonsense!
@Thomas O’ Donnell:
I didn’t say he was! But he wants to shame people and mislead them as varadkar did with older vulnerable people locking themselves at home in march and misleading people that there were laws in place, this is rule by decree the wishes of the leader, it is not democracy he doesn’t have the right to even suggest that some Irish citizens cannot be in Ireland if they choose it’s an abuse of power that you don’t get speak volumes about our media.
We may not have much of a life, but it has to be ours.
@Peter Coen: Not if plane loads of people bring extra Covid back from abroad after Christmas . Have people seen the situations in France, Spain, Italy, etc.?
The supervalu add pretty much sums up Christmas this year
Ahhhhhhhhhhh, the plan or idea changes everyday. The plan is, there is no plan!
There is EU wide recommendation for air travel that Ireland just agreed to enter only last sunday!!! what is the point of joining that if the government is now recommending not to tael at all.
@john: *travel
Exactly! And to think that people haven’t already booked their flights is mad – I booked mine in July which is around the usual time I would book – I’ve been known to book in June some years. Then when it looked like they wouldn’t go ahead (Aer Lingus into Shannon) I booked my back up flights in September.
@Rachel Dargan:
And don’t let anyone try to shame you into not traveling to your own country
“Travel forms, travel forms” “Get your travel forms here: https://cvd19plf-prod1.powerappsportals.com/en-us/
“Last of the travel forms, two for a fiver: https://cvd19plf-prod1.powerappsportals.com/en-us/
Why would travel and only add to the numbers infected by Covid19. Its clowns
@Daragh Hynes: what are you trying to say?
Don’t know why he’d wait until the end of November, surely even if numbers are low here (or especially if they’re low) we don’t want people flying in from countries with higher levels pushing our numbers back up again. If they can provide testing for everyone before they get on the flight that’s one thing, but that’s not going to happen, and we know from experience most won’t self isolate for 2 weeks. One Christmas away from home won’t kill anyone.
@Sarah Connor: says a woman sitting in the bosom of her family, what about the young men and women who had to go abroad to find a job,
@Hugh Fogerty: Odd assumption to make. I live alone, and have lived abroad previously. When I lived abroad I did not make it home every year for Christmas. If you have the money to come back, you have the money to make a nice day for yourself wherever you are, video call the family, you’ll be fine.
Couldn’t care less of government’s advice. As long as it’s not illegal, I’ll have to fly to Italy to spend Xmas with my folks. Doing this for the last 15 yrs, not going to miss this. Just be clear for once, so the airlines can arrange flights at affordable prices.
Surely people have their flights booked already at this stage?
Yeah, we’ll wait while the fates keep going up. Thanks a lot
International travel?………….. ONLY if it is necessary.
In the words of Lloyd Christmas ” so you are saying there is a chance” ?
have your say