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Displaying items by tag: Common Travel Area

The Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said Ireland is "not in a position" to restore the Common Travel Area (see Ferry News) just yet because the advice from the National Public Health Emergency Team is that there are "real concerns" about the prevalence of the variant that first originated in India in Britain.

He added that these restrictions could continue when travel has resumed within the EU this summer.

Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Varadkar said the lifting of restrictions will see a "phased return" to international travel but warned that it will not be like it was before the pandemic.

He said it is great there will be a return to travel abroad soon, but the Government is going to do it as safely as possible.

"There are going to be restrictions and requirements around vaccines and testing and we will be back to a situation with different rules for different countries," he said.

Mr Varadkar said the date for international travel will be confirmed later today at Cabinet with a clear roadmap and confirmed that all EU countries will come off the mandatory hotel quarantine list.

More here from RTE News.

Published in Ferry

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.