Government fooling nobody with its deliberate foot-dragging over restarting international travel

The Government is fooling nobody with its deliberate foot-dragging over restarting international travel through the European Union’s green cert system.

Over recent weeks various Government politicians have weakly pretended, in public, that they really really really would like to see a return of international travel to support the near-dead aviation and tourism industries at some stage this summer, just as soon as they can get the infrastructure in place.

But you can see their hearts are not in it. They’re happy with the less risky (for public health and also from a political perspective) status quo, which is an effective ban on most foreign travel.

As the rest of Europe begins to plug into the green cert travel system that was launched in Brussels this week, the Republic is still fining people €2,000 for driving to the airport, for heaven's sake. The Government inexplicably claims it won't be ready to join up to the green cert system until at least July 19th. All the while, our ministers are dragged along to the starting gates by the European Commission like sulky schoolkids who don't want to go to mass, hands in pockets, kicking stones and muttering away about the unfairness of it all.

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Potential inbound tourists will have given up waiting for laggardly Ireland to stop mitching from the EU's travel scheme

Of course, by July 19th, most would-be outbound travellers, rattled by the deliberate uncertainty on restrictions propagated from Government buildings, will have thrown their hands in the air and said “oh to hell with it, let’s just book a week in Tramore instead”. Meanwhile, most potential inbound tourists will also have given up waiting for laggardly Ireland to stop mitching from the EU’s supposedly bloc-wide travel scheme, and instead will have booked trips to countries that actually want them. This is what the Government wants.

It isn't just the clear, deliberate and eye-rollingly unsubtle delaying tactics around the implementation of the EU's green cert travel scheme. The Government has played other tricks to sabotage the return of international tourism. Over about four days in May, Leo Varadkar, Simon Coveney, Micheál Martin and Eamon Ryan all gave conflicting answers to questions about when international travel might resume, especially with Britain. It might sound chaotic, but as a tactic to sow uncertainty in the minds of would-be voyagers, it is effective.

The EU’s green cert scheme was conceived by the commission to facilitate restriction-free travel within the bloc for any passengers who are vaccinated, or who test negative, or who have recovered from Covid and are immune. The “or” is a critical component – it was one of the three. This was agreed at a meeting of European leaders in Brussels. The meeting was barely over when Varadkar was interviewed on television that evening suggesting that some countries could, in fact, choose to require vaccination AND a negative test to allow travel. Yet more confusion sowed. Just what the doctor-turned-politician ordered.

And what about the State’s recent obstinate decision to require negative PCR tests for travel for all travellers between the ages of seven and 18, regardless of the EU’s green cert scheme? That is one of the most dastardly tricks of all. Most children in that age cohort can’t get a vaccine because there is no jab approved in Ireland for anyone under 16. If you’re aged 17, it seems you need both a jab and a test to travel. Antigen tests are only to be accepted for kids aged six and under, leaving expensive PCR tests of up to €185 each the only game in town for the tweens and teens. Imagine if you have four children in that age group – unlucky but not uncommon. It would add at least €740 onto the cost of your cut-price summer beach holiday. No thanks, let’s check out Bundoran.

All of this ducking and diving and green cert-skiving must be immensely frustrating for businesses in our indigenous tourism industry, and also for Irish-based outbound travel agents, the near-forgotten commercial victims of the ban on travel. Not all foreign travel is about tourism, of course – it facilitates international trade and commerce too. But tourism is the (currently spluttering, stalling) engine of the travel game.

Restoring aviation capacity after the pandemic will not be just like reopening a food stall – you don't simply fill up on hotdogs and burgers and throw open the shutters

International travel supported about 75 per cent of the sector before the pandemic came along and ruined everything – hopes, dreams, lives and livelihoods. Until international travel resumes, much of our aviation sector will remain in mortal danger and – it is impossible to say this often enough when you live on an island – that could have serious long-term consequences for Ireland.

Restoring aviation capacity after the pandemic will not be just like reopening a food stall – you don’t simply fill up on hotdogs and burgers and throw open the shutters. The operators of lost routes will have to begged and pleaded with, enticed and courted, or the routes just plain plundered from a rival location with bagfuls of public subsidies.

International airlines have also seen a glimpse of what our approach to aviation might be if ever there is another pandemic, perish the thought. Ireland has stood out in Europe for its obduracy and that may linger in the industry.

Without international visitors, hotels and other tourism businesses in regional Irish locations may just about get by on domestic tourism until the schools return in September, when it will all fall off a cliff overnight. So let’s hope the green cert is up and flying by then. Dublin hotels are in for a tougher summer until restrictions are eased. An earlier return of UK travel would be a game changer for Dublin, but that might be scuppered if the fears over the rapid spread of the Delta variant, which originated in India, prove well founded.

In exercising caution, there ought to be an implicit bargain between the State and the [travel] industry

Here comes perhaps the most painful aspect of all of this for the travel and tourism sectors: we all want everything to resume, but, deep down, many of us who care for the industry also know that until the majority of the population is vaccinated, a certain amount of caution over travel is logical and warranted.

That’s not a late defence of the Irish approach – it still looks heavy-handed in a European context. But we can’t just fling open the departure gates and hope for the best, either.

But in exercising that caution, there ought to be an implicit bargain between the State and the industry. As long as restrictions keep the sector, or even parts of it, subdued, the Government will have to keep on footing the bill to give those businesses a fighting chance of survival out the far side of the pandemic.

That can’t go on forever. Here’s hoping travel can resume over the summer, and we don’t mess it all up with a self-inflicted wound. We’re getting close, now. A sustainable exit is in sight from this nightmare 15 months that has waylaid one of the country’s most vibrant indigenous export sectors.