The Tánaiste says a mandatory quarantine for people when they come into Ireland isn’t legal or practical.
There have been increased calls to force people into quarantine when they arrive from coronavirus hotspots.
While that's as opposed to just asking them.
The Acting Chief Medical Officer said it would be a ‘desirable measure’.
But Leo Varadkar says it didn’t work out in other countries.
"It's a high possibility [the pandemic] will go on for years until we've a vaccine or an effective treatment."
"It's just not practical to cut ourselves off to international travel for that long."
"Whether it's business, leisure, essential workers, people visiting friends and relatives, people coming home."
"The objective was to flatten the curve, suppress the virus... it was never to eliminate the virus."
"New Zealand thought they'd done that, and they haven't - they now have new cases every day."
Worked my ass off in ICU the past few months alongside my colleagues, nurses, doctors, admin staff, porters, & cleaning staff while my family made sacrifices to accommodate my job. @MichealMartinTD @DonnellyStephen why are American tourists not quarantining on arrival to Ireland?
— Shane Power (@shanercpower) July 12, 2020
Aussie Plan Was "A Bit Of A Disaster"
"Australia tried mandatory quarantine, and it turned out to be a bit of a disaster."
"The centres, the hotels in which they quarantine people became clusters for infection."
"Now Melbourne's in a second lockdown."
New Zealand has had a small number of daily cases - often just one or two.
So that's having previously 'eliminated transmission' of coronavirus in the country.
— Rob (@ghoulcabin) July 13, 2020
Green list
Mr Varadkar confirmed that the Government still plans to publish a 'green list' of countries.
So those are ones deemed safe to travel to.
While the list should be ready by Monday, Leo Varadkar stressed that could change.
He explained:
"What we're going to do when it comes to travelling to countries that aren't on the green list or A-list is tighter controls."
"That is putting the passenger locator form online, and also means potentially looking at testing."
"People will say testing is inferior to mandatory quarantine.
"But if we know mandatory quarantine can't be done."
"So then maybe it's better to do something like that than nothing at all."
