According to the section on health in the programme for Government, the Government's priority is to protect public health by following public health advice. On the day that another front-line health worker has tragically lost his life as a result of Covid-19, does the Taoiseach really believe it is a good time to start abandoning adherence to public health advice of the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, on the issue of foreign travel? What is happening is quite extraordinary. This morning, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, stated that he would make things clear but then went on to muddy further already murky waters by saying that, although the Government did not want people to go and would prefer if they did not, they could do so. That is essentially the advice. It is like arriving at a set of traffic lights where the green and red lights are simultaneously illuminated.

The red light is on now, Deputy, because you are out of time.

It is confusing and clearly not in line with the public health advice being issued by NPHET on foreign travel. How does the Taoiseach explain that?

I think the Deputy is overstating the issue. We take the issue in terms of travel and its potential contributory effect to Covid very seriously. That is why we have one of the most restrictive travel frameworks globally. We are very restrictive in this country in terms of the number of people coming into the country and the advice we have given people, and people by and large have complied with that advice. Hence, the very low numbers, relative to what happened before Covid, that are travelling either in or out of the country. People are travelling to countries that, in my view, have a very high incidence of Covid, but it is important to say that there are other countries there that have a lower incidence of Covid than we have ourselves. I think there has to be a consistency of messaging in that regard as well.

I thank the Taoiseach. Time is up.

The key point that I again have to reiterate has to do with testing, contact tracing and having strong measures at our airports to protect people from Covid.