Ryanair has called on Transport Minister Eamon Ryan to immediately follow the UK government's decision to allow both vaccinated citizens and their children to travel freely from 19 July without quarantine restrictions.
Britain plans to scrap quarantine for fully-vaccinated arrivals from other countries in the coming weeks, its transport minister Grant Shapps said today.
This comes a day after announcing a rule change for those in Britain who had had both shots.
Grant Shapps announced yesterday that fully vaccinated British residents arriving in England from medium risk amber countries would no longer have to self-isolate on arrival.
Ryanair said the UK government's decision has given UK families a much-needed summer holiday boost.
"Minister Ryan (and NPHET) should now follow the UK science which shows that vaccines are highly effective at preventing serious illness / fatalities and have broken the link between rising Covid case numbers and hospitalisations," the airline said.
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"With little Covid risk to children under 18, they should be allowed to travel freely to/from the EU with their families this summer from 19 July," it added.
"Ryanair calls on Minister Ryan to follow the UK science, apply the same rules in Ireland and remove the need for vaccinated families and their under 18 children to quarantine upon return from EU holiday hotspots, which will give Irish families a much-needed certainty and a late summer holiday in July, August and September", the airline stated.
Ryanair's group chief executive Michael O'Leary today accused NPHET of "pontificating about their scary invariant".
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne, Mr O'Leary said the airline had a meeting with the Department of Transport yesterday, the National Facilitation Committee along with other airlines and tourism interests.
"Remarkably they were trying to explain to us that vaccinated Irish citizens can travel without restrictions from 19 July, but their children under 18 will have to have a negative PCR test and quarantine for 14 days on their return to Ireland," he said.
"We asked them to explain why that was the case, they couldn't. They said it was a public health issue," Michael O'Leary added.
Mr O'Leary insisted that "the rest of Europe is moving".
"Nobody would belittle the Delta variant, but what the HSE and NPHET keep ignoring is the fact that the link between case numbers and serious illness and hospitalisations has effectively been broken by the vaccination programme," he stated.
