The Government is concerned as over 5,200 Irish people flew into Dublin Airport admitting they had returned from holidays abroad during a week in January, despite COVID travel restrictions.
This comes as the Irish Government tightened restrictions on non-essential international travel during the Level 5 lockdown.
Liz Canavan, the Assistant Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach, said this represented two-thirds of the Irish people who returned to the country that week.
Ms Canavan warned that non-essential overseas travel is a breach of Level 5 restrictions and added it was: “important that everyone understands and respects that.”
In total, 13,606 passengers arrived into Dublin from January 30th to February 5th. A total of 8,218 were Irish residents and the remaining 5,241 stated that they were returning from a holiday or visit abroad according to The Irish Times.
This represents 63.8% of all Irish residents who arrived into Dublin Airport that week.
Ms Canavan expressed her concern at the number of Irish people going on holidays and breaching restrictions.
She added: “While we all would love and need a holiday, now is not the time to travel.
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“Unless you are travelling for a specific essential purpose, please stay at home and follow the guidance.”
She highlighted “a very significant range of measures” have been taken on travel.
These measures include an increase in fines for non-essential overseas travel ranging from €100 to €500, with Ms Canavan adding that gardaí have been detecting and fining people.
Visa-free travel from countries like Brazil and South Africa, where there are new variants of the virus have been suspended and issuing of visas, other than in exceptional circumstances are also suspended.
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