Leo Varadkar has warned the government could make quarantining for returning travellers compulsory at ports and airports.
And that the upshot for this in his opinion is that people should simply stay at home for the rest of the summer.
He said: “So I would say to people, best not to travel unless you absolutely have to.”
The Taoiseach was speaking as the European Commission unveiled a suite of measures to get the EU tourism industry back up and running, including billions of euro in supports.
He told the Demot and Dave Show on Today FM on Wednesday morning: “At the moment if you come into Ireland you have to self-isolate, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re coming from.
“The only exceptions are for people involved in haulage, airplane staff, pilots, some essential workers, but anyone else has to self-isolate for 14 days.
“That is going to be the case for the foreseeable future.
“In fact, we may need to tighten it up a bit, because at the moment it’s advisory, it’s not mandatory, it’s not enforceable by the law and we may have to do that as the number of cases in Ireland keep going down, because there is an increased risk of the disease being imported into Ireland from overseas until we have some sort of international agreement where we make international travel safe again.”
“So I would say to people, best not to travel unless you absolutely have to.”
