Are we there yet? Your second Travel Megathread (threadbans in OP}

Micky 32

BobbyBolivia wrote: »

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind now that the aviation sector in Ireland will be utterly destroyed for the forseeable future.

Cork airport has already lost Ryanair. Aer Lingus have taken on the Transatlantic slots at Manchester which spells disaster for Shannon. Those two airports alone provide hundreds of millions to the Irish economy directly and indirectly, the landscape for tourism outside of Dublin is incredibly bleak.

I just find it amazing that we are looking at the prospect of the EU rolling out a travel scheme, and the UK and US resuming travel while we are adding countries to a mandatory quarantine list.

Mandatory Quarantine without pursuing a Zero Covid strategy is just bizarre. It keeps 'variants of concern out' but nobody ever says which variant the issue is with - because our available vaccines work on all of them!

There is no justification for what gets added and what gets removed. See also: Isreal.

Travel, as utterly inconsequential as it is, has become this boogeyman due to the insane severity of our restrictions to date - the government started the ball rolling on public opinion on travel but now seem happy to go along with the mob - the baying mob have decided that all travel must be stopped now. Doesn't matter if it makes sense or not. Reminds me when you would see all sorts (and Sinn Fein) demanding that we start spending Apple's tax money. Just absolute brainless, clueless nonsense and here is more of it.

When you see comments like this you know it’s going to be a permanent feature of life vaccinated or not, no way is this temporary :

“”However, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said that adding a "lot of countries where we have a lot of Irish citizens" to the list needs to be "thought through carefully" and the Government needs to make sure it gets this right.“”

BobbyBolivia

I do go back to Varadkar saying that it would be in place for a year if brought in, something which has already been mentioned in this thread.

They didn't dream up the mandatory quarantine nonsense to dispense with it only a few weeks later - can you imagine what the mob would think of that? No, no - they need to show the people that they are serious about MHQ.

mmclo

a_squirrelman wrote: »

Does it have to be gardai? Other people can be given the job. Random house call, person wasn't home, you get fined.

DPD? Seems to be their specialty 😀

Mr. Karate

I finally requested my refund from Aer Lingus. With the US now being added to the list next week its definitely off for the foreseeable future. And I've rescheduled it enough as it is.

bluelamp

BobbyBolivia wrote: »

I do go back to Varadkar saying that it would be in place for a year if brought in, something which has already been mentioned in this thread.

They didn't dream up the mandatory quarantine nonsense to dispense with it only a few weeks later - can you imagine what the mob would think of that? No, no - they need to show the people that they are serious about MHQ.

It will be interesting to see how the population reacts to this, until now it was mostly countries that Irish people didn't travel to in huge numbers.

People don't care when it doesn't affect them, but might change their tune because they have a kid living in Germany, a sister in America, a holiday home in France etc.

Happydays2020

I think this is a first in my nearly 50 years. Agreeing with Alan Shatter.

https://twitter.com/alan__shatter/status/1380164400594685954?s=21

ShadowTech

So the government are now putting the two largest economies in the EU as well as the U.S., one of the largest sources of foreign direct investment, on a list to imprison people upon arrival in an effort to keep out variants that bypass vaccines, which to our knowledge don't currently exist. These countries are being added and removed based on criteria that have not been communicated (or don't exist) and in the absence of a metric to end the policy. :eek:

I've disagreed with a number of decisions of the government throughout the last year but I've never thought there was anything more than a bad decision or an approach I don't agree with. But this is something else entirely. These decisions literally make no sense. Either we're implementing zero covid or we're not and everyone knows we're not. This half-baked shambles of an approach serves only to harm our reputation and imposes onerous penalties on people, residents and citizens alike, who have family or other responsibilities abroad. It's almost like the people in Government are actively trying to harm the country.

We have vaccines, we're not far from having real control over this situation and the light at the end of the tunnel was in sight not long ago but now... what the feck is this? What happened to our lovely, globally connected, outward looking society?

a_squirrelman

a_squirrelman wrote: »

Does it have to be gardai? Other people can be given the job. Random house call, person wasn't home, you get fined.

Fined by who? What authority do they have?

Is the USA being added? Thought the chat was just EU. Has there been more news I have missed

ShadowTech

Deleted User wrote: »

Is the USA being added? Thought the chat was just EU. Has there been more news I have missed

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-40261655.html

Mr. Karate

ShadowTech wrote: »

So the government are now putting the two largest economies in the EU as well as the U.S., one of the largest sources of foreign direct investment, on a list to imprison people upon arrival in an effort to keep out variants that bypass vaccines, which to our knowledge don't currently exist. These countries are being added and removed based on criteria that have not been communicated (or don't exist) and in the absence of a metric to end the policy. :eek:

I've disagreed with a number of decisions of the government throughout the last year but I've never thought there was anything more than a bad decision or an approach I don't agree with. But this is something else entirely. These decisions literally make no sense. Either we're implementing zero covid or we're not and everyone knows we're not. This half-baked shambles of an approach serves only to harm our reputation and imposes onerous penalties on people, residents and citizens alike, who have family or other responsibilities abroad. It's almost like the people in Government are actively trying to harm the country.

We have vaccines, we're not far from having real control over this situation and the light at the end of the tunnel was in sight not long ago but now... what the feck is this? What happened to our lovely, globally connected, outward looking society?

The decision to add the US, France, Germany and even Israel are purely political. These Countries [though maybe not Israel] are ones that the Irish are the most likely to escape to in order to find work and feed their families.

Wallander

Wallander wrote: »

I think it's a reasonable assumption he was talking about the only form of quarantine present in the EU at the time he spoke (home quarantine) but I feel we are splitting hairs now.

What of his other comments? What exactly is it you are complaining about and under what statute?

a_squirrelman

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

Fined by who? What authority do they have?

They've done things fairly sharpish with emergency legislation before.

Del Griffith

https://www.dublinlive.ie/lifestyle/travel/dublin-airport-travel-update-aviation-20340628

Irish Aviation Authority pointing out the obvious, that their industry and everyone in it is absolutely ****ed and this will have a knock on effect on the whole economy.

ShadowTech

ShadowTech wrote: »

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-40261655.html

Thanks. Going to the states for a family wedding in July. Guess I’ll switch my return flight now go to the UK. Then switch passports. Once these MHQs are in place, they’ll be here for the year for sure

embraer170

I said it yesterday and I will say this again. It is total and and absolute madness.

Start by properly enforcing home quarantine. You don't need 100s of Garda checking everyone a few times a day, but do a few random checks with some strong enforcement action on those found outside their listed residence (with a bit of associated media attention).

shalclon

Apologies in wrong forum, wasnt sure where to post. Hi,I am wondering if anyone can tell me or point me where to find out if the Chinese vaccine is accepted in Ireland or will a person travelling to Ireland from China who has received the Chinese vaccine still need to quarantine on arrival in the designated quarantine hotels? They would be hoping to arrive into Ireland early September. Thanks in advance.

sy_flembeck

ShadowTech wrote: »

So the government are now putting the two largest economies in the EU as well as the U.S., one of the largest sources of foreign direct investment, on a list to imprison people upon arrival in an effort to keep out variants that bypass vaccines, which to our knowledge don't currently exist. These countries are being added and removed based on criteria that have not been communicated (or don't exist) and in the absence of a metric to end the policy. :eek:

I've disagreed with a number of decisions of the government throughout the last year but I've never thought there was anything more than a bad decision or an approach I don't agree with. But this is something else entirely. These decisions literally make no sense. Either we're implementing zero covid or we're not and everyone knows we're not. This half-baked shambles of an approach serves only to harm our reputation and imposes onerous penalties on people, residents and citizens alike, who have family or other responsibilities abroad. It's almost like the people in Government are actively trying to harm the country.

We have vaccines, we're not far from having real control over this situation and the light at the end of the tunnel was in sight not long ago but now... what the feck is this? What happened to our lovely, globally connected, outward looking society?

I have gone past being angry. And sad. What gain is there in this? What is the rationale in protecting people from non-existent variants, or 'variants of concern' - their new buzzwords?

This whole fiasco is simply bizarre.

shalclon

shalclon wrote: »

Apologies in wrong forum, wasnt sure where to post. Hi,I am wondering if anyone can tell me or point me where to find out if the Chinese vaccine is accepted in Ireland or will a person travelling to Ireland from China who has received the Chinese vaccine still need to quarantine on arrival in the designated quarantine hotels? They would be hoping to arrive into Ireland early September. Thanks in advance.

All the information can be found here https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/travel_and_recreation/travel_to_ireland/hotel_quarantine.html

As far as I can see, it doesn’t matter if you have been vaccinated or not.

stargazer 68

We have staff (nurses) returning from leave of absence etc who have organised their flights etc to factor in their 2 week isolation. Now since Thursday (?) they also have to add in hotel quarantine for them and their spouse and children at a huge cost.

Wouldn't surprise me if they just say forget it. We will be back when this hotel quarantine is scrapped. I certainly would.

KanyeSouthEast

Who is actually calling for this? Who is driving this?

naughtysmurf

KanyeSouthEast wrote: »

Who is actually calling for this? Who is driving this?

If it’s Nephet / Donnelly / FF Then to be quite frank Leo & Simon C need to grow a pair

BobbyBolivia

Sums it up.

Outdoor gatherings = 0.1% of cases
International travel = 0.37% of cases

Two molehills turned into mountains this past year

https://twitter.com/higginsdavidw/status/1379524656621891591

Mr. Karate

KanyeSouthEast wrote: »

Who is actually calling for this? Who is driving this?

The Zero Covid clowns.

dalyboy

naughtysmurf wrote: »

If it’s Nephet / Donnelly / FF Then to be quite frank Leo & Simon C need to grow a pair

That’s the problem
Leo admitted this would be in for at least a year and didn’t utter a word against it.

Coveney was on newstalk this morning all but praising the madness.

On one hand we have a government imposing this and in the opposition we have a mob shouting for more more more.
To say we are fcuked is an understatement.

It’s a complete clusterfcuk and there’s no end to how far it’ll spiral

embraer170

I would have fully supported something like this a year ago.

But today, when the highest risk groups are close to being vaccinated? When other countries (US, Israel) have a majority of the population vaccinated? When testing is cheaper and quicker than ever before?

One saving grace is that the post Brexit UK will never have hotel quarantine for Americans. So there’ll always be a way to get around it. And whatever might be put in place in the UK for EU countries will be released in the summer.

Because the UK has an exit plan.

As long as ireland doesn’t impose MHQ from the UK (which for the life of me I don’t know how we could) then there’ll be ways around all of this

Especially if you have two passports and so can avoid passport stamps in the ‘clean’ one

dalyboy

The funniest thing these politicians ever uttered was “we are all in it together”

What about people who have kids abroad , wives abroad , holiday homes abroad , girlfriend/ boyfriends abroad , investments abroad etc

How does “all in it together” come into this with their cozy unaffected lives and they’re arbitrary destroying peoples lives for issues that have no real evidence of happening (variants to kill vaccine effectiveness , wtf are they ?? ) .

Corholio

Didn't think I'd see the US being added, the EU countries Donnelly was dead set on getting in but US is crazy all round. I don't agree with some on here and only partially agree with others, but how can someone think that the US and the likes of that fully vaccinated, twice negatively tested passenger from Israel should be in MHQ I have absolutely no idea.

I think some would rather not to be seen to backtrack on a message board than to admit it's crazy. I've changed my mind on a few things during all this, nothing wrong with it at all in such changing extraordinary circumstances.

dalyboy

Corholio wrote: »

Didn't think I'd see the US being added, the EU countries Donnelly was dead set on getting in but US is crazy all round. I don't agree with some on here and only partially agree with others, but how can someone think that the US and the likes of that fully vaccinated, twice negatively tested passenger from Israel should be in MHQ I have absolutely no idea.

I think some would rather not to be seen to backtrack on a message board than to admit it's crazy. I've changed my mind on a few things during all this, nothing wrong with it at all in such changing extraordinary circumstances.

It’s not about agreeing or disagreeing with people on this thread.
It’s on the Irish examiner at the moment in black and white

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-40261655.html

Yep. I cringed for the country today when that Israel lady was on the radio.
What must her Israeli family think of our backward action on mhq. God knows.