Numbers travelling to and from country by air and sea collapses last month
The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic has been starkly highlighted today by the collapse in the number of people travelling to and from the country last month.
Since March, the Government has advised against all non-essential travel, including travel overseas, saying it should be avoided.
Anyone coming into the country is being asked to self-isolate for 14 days, and from tomorrow, it will be mandatory for passengers coming into the State to fill out a COVID-19 Passenger Locator Form.
Data released by the Central Statistics Office today show that the number of people travelling to and from Ireland by air or sea in April collapsed by 99% when compared to the same month last year.
Last year saw 1.7 million people travel in each direction in April. Last month saw 16,100 arrivals and 17,800 departures.
Most people coming to Ireland last month came from Britain (9,300), with the Netherlands and the US coming next with 1,200 and 1,100 people respectively.
Britain also accounted for most people leaving the country, 8,800, while the Netherlands was again second with 2,000 travellers and France third with 1,400 people.
For the first four months of the year, 3,101,300 people came into Ireland from overseas and 3,063,100 people left the country, decreases of 44.4% (5,579,300) and 45.1% (5,575,700) respectively when compared to the same period in 2019.
