Ferry and airline passenger figures from the Central Statistics Office today show a huge fall in overseas travel to and from Ireland in March as Covid-19 restrictions started to be imposed.

The CSO said there were 635,000 arrivals into Ireland and 602,100 departures from the country in March.

This compared with monthly travel of more than 1.4 million in each direction in March last year and the figures marked a 56.7% drop in arrival figures and a 58.1% fall in departure figures.

CSO figures showed that of the 635,000 people arriving in Ireland in March, 95.1% arrived by air and 4.9% arrived by sea.

Of the 602,100 people leaving Ireland, 95.6% departed by air and 4.4% left by sea.

Today's figures are contained in the CSO's new monthly release on Air and Sea Travel Statistics.

For more from RTE News and passenger statistics for cross-channel routes (mostly to the UK) and those to mainland Europe click here.

Afloat adds ferries are operating out of Dublin Port and Rosslare Europort though there are currently no services running out of the Port of Cork.

As previously reported, following advise from governments in March Brittany Ferries were forced to temporarily suspend passenger services including their Irish operations. However from June services are due to resume even though the Government’s phased exit from lockdown means people will be unable to travel until the second half of July.