Michael O'Leary has said that Ryanair doesn't "need Ireland" as he demands the country begins to reopen for tourism.
The airline's chief executive officer has consistently voiced his disapproval of how the leaders of the country have reacted to the coronavirus and now he urged the Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan to "get the finger out".
He told Newstalk Breakfast: "We in the tourism industry are bitterly unhappy. What we've been promised is not a reopening - it's just an announcement. We have two main issues at the moment. Ireland is closed to tourism because UK visitors must quarantine at home for 14 days when they can flood across the border, making the restriction unwarranted. The UK have 75% of adults vaccinated.
"We have this bizarre and completely useless hotel quarantine system. 14 countries are on the list at the moment and we have visitors from France, Belgium and Luxembourg having to quarantine but no one else from Europe. We've Angola, Congo, Rwanda on the list when there's no direct flights from those countries anyway.
"The Indian variant has arrived while quarantine has been in place so it's useless. It serves no purpose, there's no point having countries where there are no direct flights. The hotel quarantine was an ill-judged measure. Vaccines are the future."
Mr O'Leary then turned his attention to the leader of the Green Party
"We have been calling on Eamon Ryan, who is without doubt one of the worst Ministers for Transport we've ever had to come up with a plan. Eamon Ryan has had a ten-point plan on his desk from July of last year and he has done nothing. He's a nice man but he's utterly ineffective.
"The plan is simple. UK arrivals should be allowed to come to Ireland from June 1. They will come in here with the benefit of vaccination. And then the EU arrivals - NPHET class international travel as one lump. EU arrivals should be unrestricted from July 1, when Ireland and Europe will be 80% vaccinated. That will allow our industry to recover. We need the plan now and we need a date."
Mr O'Leary said that the tourism industry was "on its knees" - warning that he could easily pull Ryanair aircrafts out of Ireland if required.
"It's easy for us, we can move aircrafts, Aer Lingus can do it too. We closed our Shannon base, it'll reopen in the summer, the Cork base is closed. I don't need Ireland. We can move to the UK or Europe. But our tourism industry is going to be devastated and we want to get Ireland back open. Staycations will take care of hotels in the south and west and that is fine - but no one will be staycationing in Dublin."
