International travel date may be beyond July 9 - Varadkar
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar says a ‘green list’ of countries for travel - to be published on July 9 - may only allow people fly at a later date.
All non-essential travel should still be avoided, said Mr Varadkar.
He also played down the likelihood of mandatory quarantine being introduced here.
Speaking at a launch of €6.5m in online support grants for 183 businesses, Mr Varadkar said: “That is still the plan [to publish on July 9] to publish a greenest or shortlist of countries, which you can travel to without the 14-day quarantine.
“But we do have a new government. And in fairness to the new government and to the new Taoiseach, the new minister of health, they're going to want to study matters and bring proposals to a Cabinet sub-committee this week.”
Asked if the plan may recommend people actually travel later after July 9, he added:
“Yes, that is possible, that we will produce a list and the date that it comes into effect may not be the ninth of July.
What I do appreciate though is that there is uncertainty.
“I know for a lot of people who want to travel abroad to see friends and family, many people that they haven't seen for months, or people who want to travel abroad for other purposes, what they would like is clarity and certainty from government.”
Mr Varadkar was also asked about his appointments of junior ministers and whether leaving some out of roles could chip away at his authority in some way.
He said it would not, adding: “In terms of the appointments that I made. As leader of Fine Gael, we had to go from something like 28 ministers to what would be more normal in a coalition with something like 14, and the capacity for the job obviously has to be taken into account.
“You know issues like geography and gender and so on. But the overriding consideration was the best people for the job.”
