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

Kramer wrote: »

Then it should be swabbed & immediately detained for 14 days, especially if the swabs are negative .

Just like the Irish family who all tested negative there a few days ago the family who tested positive a few days ago & were out shopping in the supermarket last night :pac:.

I don't see the point of making up lies.

acequion wrote: »

That's interesting. Thanks so much for posting that. If the noose is loosened even a little bit, it will be thanks to the EU. Just imagine if we weren't in the EU! Unthinkable.

If there is any positive to come out of this continuing shambles, and I'm clutching at straws here, it's that if we ever get a vote regarding a potential Irexit I know how I will vote.

Imagine a country run by the current imbecile and his ilk but with no oversight whatsoever.

Route1 wrote: »

Has anyone travelled through Dublin airport recently? Just want to get an insight of what to expect, I'm more than happy to pay the 500 euro to get out of this ****hole. Do the guards have right to prevent you from travelling altogether?

They can only ask you for your reason for travelling or ask you to turn around. They cannot stop you from leaving the country. It's a basic part of UN human right's.
Sound like you want to leave this '****hole', so for people emigrating, that's a valid reason for travelling.

Theboinkmaster wrote: »

What are the chances the government call whatever they announce tomorrow as level 4 and the passport office re-opens 6 April?!

I hope so. It’s absolutely insane that it’s not open, it’s so deliberate as well.

faceman wrote: »

Let’s see what Simon Coveney says

“These are not facilities that I think people will look forward to staying in.”

* Army escort
* Police called if you leave with high fines and possible jail time if
* In some cases we have there isn’t enough beds in the room for the number people in it

You and I may not agree on the broader use of the facilities it’s you can’t deny these are detention centres, given the complaints already made, number is escapees so far, it’s clear that what happens when in you’re in there is not of interest to not only the government, but the generally public too given comments here and on social media

Faceman, there was another poster a few pages back who told me that they would - "in a second" - choose to travel to a hotel in Greece with 200 other passengers, not be allowed to leave the compound (which consisted of hotel, a pool and two restaurants ... maybe one or two other facilities within that walled/enclosed area). They would not be allowed to even go across the road to walk along the beach. Additionally, they would be the only occupants of the facility. And when they return, there would be a 10 day quarantine.



That poster and yourself broadly agree on most topics here. They got their knickers in a twist because I used the perfectly logical, and lexically correct, word "compound" to describe the facility. They insisted that the only acceptable descriptor was "resort". And then somehow jumped to thinking I was claiming they were going to be brought to Guantanamo. I never made any claim about prisons or detention or anything in relation to Greece - my point had simply been that I wouldn't be bothered doing that kind of holiday. I would just consider it to be a shit holiday.



So I am interested in your opinion of that story about the 200 Dutch holidaymakers to go to the enclosed facility in Greece? More resort or more prison? Prison if it was in Ireland and resort if it was anywhere else?



A quarantine is to stop diseases or infections being introduced to a country. If you want to bring an animal in from abroad you might have to send it to quarantine for a period. You can't say "well I want to quarantine Fido at home because he's special". Because that defeats the purpose of the quarantine which is to protect against new diseases being potentially introduced to the community.



A person makes the choice of whether they want to come in or not. And then they have to abide by the rules. Which are there for a reason. No matter how exceptional or special they believe in their own heads that they are. If you catch a virus in the community here, then you need to isolate at home. There are laws against breaking that isolation and the Guards can be called if you break those laws. If you are in quarantine, then you have to stay there. If you break that then again there is a law against that and the Guards can be called. Having people in the centralised quarantine location makes it easier to monitor that process.



We had three people who absconded from an official quarantine. Are you going to try to tell me that those people, who thought that they were so special that they could get away with blatantly ignoring the rules to that extent, would have went home and 100% followed a "home quarantine"? I don't think you are gullible to trust that they would. The people arriving from foreign places could have new variants which is a whole order of magnitude more serious than than the existing ones circulating. And example of how serious this is taken would be the recent case where a traveller coming in to London from Brazil was originally given the all clear in a test. Then, during a review, it was found they were actually positive. The authorities used a couple of hundred people for a few days to track down the person. They don't do that kind of thing for normal contact tracing.



And btw, no - you don't know that those 3 absconders had any kind of test. As pointed out previously, one of the reasons for being sent to quarantine is landing without an acceptable test result.

faceman wrote: »

I agree with you, the idea of going to what some might call a “resort” would be idea of holiday hell. A compound is a fair description. I lived in sub Saharan Africa and some holiday resorts were exactly that! (To avoid trouble getting in, rather than tourists getting out!)

I imagine from your posts lying by the pool or the beach for 2 weeks is not your idea of a holiday and I’d be the same with my view. But there are people who just want to be away. Each to their own. But now is not the time for holidays.

Ultimately I don’t agree with quarantine hotels for travel within the EU unless an area has been deemed high risk for new variants. That assumes that pcr testing is mandatory of course and any arrivals without one or with a positive test are subject to a mandatory stay at a facility. I don’t agree with layovers of less than 1 hour being a justified reason for quarantine for that Irish family returning from Australia.

WRT to the Irish quarantine solution, it’s clearly not up to scratch. Australia and New Zealand have a support system and network in place to ensure that people are comfortable during their stay and provisions for mental health and exercise are considered. Even at that it’s very flawed in those countries but it’s still better than Ireland.

With the public mocking of that Irish family who complained and the Irish track record of neglect, we are going to hear more and more awful stories about it until it’s finally removed, probably sometime next year.

It infuriates me that despite all the noise about zero covid, travel and variants, the basics at home are ignored, or not enforced or are neglected in Ireland. Covid patients aren’t monitored, they’re told to self isolate but nobody checks and covid is still a taboo. People don’t get tested or hide symptoms to avoid having to take time off work or to avoid isolating.

It’s easy to bash travel because for normal it’s easy to choose not to travel. But when the lens is pointed internally in Ireland, the voices become quieter. The only rants and raves I ever hear are about ultimately what is very low risk activities. Runners/joggers and people on beaches.

Thanks for the response, not that I agreed with it all, but it was at least well reasoned.

Klonker wrote: »

David Nabarro of Who said today he's hopeful of EU travel this summer on the Today with Claire Byrne show. Didn't sound like it was the answer Claire was expecting or hoping for :pac:

The rest of the EU are going to be travelling, it's just a matter how out of touch we'll continue to be. There will almost definitely be the advice not to travel but it's just of there will be fines and quarentine in place or not.

On the fine for non essential international travel, how exactly does it work? What is the law? Is it I can't be in the vicinity of the airport without a good reason? If its that you can't travel abroad thats the law then you don't actually break the law until you have left this country and they obviously can't give you the fine then. I was never really sure around this.

What did Lockdown Lover Claire have to say when Nabarro said this?

Tazz T wrote: »

https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2021/03/29/tourists-germans-crete-greeks-lockdown

And so it begins...

Although I don't know what they're going to do there, since everything's closed and you have to apply by SMS to be allowed outside for essential purposes.

"Apparently following the outcry, mainstream media report on Monday, that epidemiologists will most likely decide for the gradual lifting of the lockdown as of the end of the week."

Good for them. Greece must not have an effective propaganda machine like RTE to keep the populace terrified and blaming each other.

If and when the same thing happens in Ireland the outcry from the plebs won't be "why don't we have those freedoms" , it'll be "why aren't they miserable, lock them up immediately!"
Or is it already?

GazzaL wrote: »

I found it amusing today that Newstalk were talking about the Government's new "rural Ireland plan" and decentralisation.

Ryanair and Aer Lingus are shifting routes out of Cork and Shannon airports, Ryanair have closed their Cork base, and they're moving aircraft to Belfast for all the new routes there. How can you talk about decentralisation when the two main airports outside of Dublin will be full of cobwebs?

Ireland is going backwards.

Absolutely. The same articles talk about turning pubs into remote working hubs. Meanwhile the plan is to annihilate the aviation sector. Long covid is going to apply to a lot of industry as well as those that have had it.

Still hoping to be holidaying somewhere nice (not Ireland) in the summer, although this I feel will be July, Aug, Sep even....

Belfast really is in for a bumper summer going on the latest recommendation from NPHET.

Mick O Leary better get as many routes in there as possible. London Belfast route is going to be busiest route on the island.