THE GOVERNMENT WILL have a plan on international travel ready for 13 October, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has said. 

Speaking on RTÉ One’s The Week in Politics programme, the transport minister confirmed that the plan will be published in the coming weeks. 

International travel has been a difficult issue for the government, which has faced questions about the status of the Green List and whether it would be aligning with the approach taken by the EU. 

Last month, the EU announced a plan that would introduce a traffic light system that would create a common criteria and thresholds for EU member states for deciding when travel restrictions should be introduced. 

The plan is set to come into effect this month. 

Today, Ryan confirmed that the Irish government’s plan – set to align with that of the EU - should be finalised by 13 October.

“We have to do it in that time frame,” Ryan said. 

He also said that he would be meeting with health and transport officials tomorrow to discuss the system of Covid-19 testing in airports. 

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“We have to be careful we don’t take testing capacity from the health system but still have, like Germany, the capability of including testing as part of our way of monitoring aviation,” Ryan said. 

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly previously confirmed that randomised testing is to be rolled out as part of a suite of measures at the airports.

“It is not our objective to test 30%, 40% or 50%. It is not a mass testing measure. It is part of one of the measures that we are bringing in,” he said.