The daily numbers for Covid might be lower than they were a week or two week ago but they are still extremely high, as is the alarming number of reported deaths. We are in the middle of a crisis with no end in sight. The UK variant, with its increased transmissibility, resulted in flights being suspended from late December in recognition of that increased risk from the variant. Between 11 December and 3 January, 118,000 passengers arrived by air and a further 20,000 arrived by sea. We know there was a requirement on all passengers to fill out a passenger locator form. According to the response to a question I tabled to the Minister for Health - I got the information on 14 January - passengers who do not claim an exemption, such as air and sea crew or those travelling onward, including to Northern Ireland, are followed up and contacted by text to confirm their address and, if they do not respond, they get one or more phone calls. Ultimately, I was told, 51% of those passengers gave their place of residence. This means that a whopping 49% did not confirm where they were staying. We are currently seeing people being fined for travelling beyond 5 km if they do not have a good reason to do so. The contrast is not lost on the public. While none of us likes losing our freedoms and none of us wants to see international travellers restricted, we are in the middle of a pandemic and such high levels of non-compliance have to be a risk and must be extending or prolonging our lockdowns and everything that goes with them.

I raised this issue in regard to international travel with the Tánaiste on 4 November. I said that it seemed we were taking a fingers-crossed approach in terms of compliance. The Tánaiste told me:

One of the issues we are going to have to consider is enforcement. As the Deputy knows, at the moment the requirement for a person to restrict his or her movements having come in from abroad is not mandatory.

He went on to say:

One thing we are giving consideration to as a Government is whether we need to make mandatory and make legally enforceable the requirement for a person to restrict his or her movements or self-isolate in certain circumstances.

Since 9 January, when flights resumed, passengers originating from the UK, South Africa and, subsequently, any South American country are advised to self-isolate for a period of 14 days following their arrival. The key word here is "advised". That was according to a PQ reply I got yesterday from the Minister for Transport. Where is the enforcement that was being talked about in November? Obviously, the risks have to be managed until the vaccine provides a protection that gives us some semblance of normality. We know there are risks from new variants. We also know that we need an all-Ireland approach, yet we are not providing information that has been repeatedly sought by our Northern Ireland counterparts. Why is that?

I will reiterate my questions. In regard to the 49% of passengers who did not provide an address, what is the Government going to do about that non-compliance? Where is the enforcement? What additional measures are seriously being considered? For example, is the Government looking at mandatory quarantines in designated hotels? What is it going to do in regard to Northern Ireland and the request for information?

I thank the Deputy for her questions. The passenger locator form has been in place for many months, as she knows. It has not worked out to be as robust a measure as was needed. That is why the Government made changes in recent weeks in response to the fact that we are now concerned about new variants entering the country from other parts of the world. Now, anybody who is entering the State by air or by sea, with the exception of supply chain workers, hauliers, pilots and cabin crew, for example, has to have a PCR test. People have to have had a PCR test within 72 hours of arriving in the country and they have to produce evidence of it. There is a very high degree of compliance when it comes to that. It is working very well. I know it is not 100% in terms of stopping the virus coming into the country but it is working very well and it is mandatory. There are fines and files have been sent by the Garda to the DPP for people who have arrived without evidence of a negative test.

The number of people travelling in and out of the country now is very low. It is down to about 33,000 people a week, but that is people who are travelling for essential reasons. Quarantining that many people for 14 days in a hotel with closed windows would be 66,000 people. These are people who generally are involved in essential travel, for example, people coming back for a funeral or maybe seeing a dying relative, a supply chain worker or a crucial worker who has come to fix a machine in a hospital, for example. This is essential travel and we need to make sure we do not cut off essential travel entirely because sometimes it is necessary.

In terms of anything we might do in the future, we need to bear in mind three things: our citizens' rights - our EU rights as EU citizens; proportionality; and the situation with regard to Northern Ireland. First, on proportionality, at the moment if somebody tests positive for Covid in Ireland, we do not detain them. We do not put them in a hotel with security guards. If we were to take people who have come in from overseas - Irish people returning home; citizens coming back from overseas who have a negative test for Covid - and detain them in a hotel for 14 days, that would be disproportionate because there are many people in Ireland who we know have tested positive for Covid and we do not seek to detain them. Unfortunately, some of them do not self-isolate when they are supposed to. We would have to consider the proportionality of it.

The next issue is citizens' rights. We are EU citizens, there is freedom of movement and we have the right to travel, study and work anywhere in the European Union. That can only be constrained in very particular circumstances.

Then there is the obvious issue of Northern Ireland. A zero Covid policy and a very strict 14-day border quarantine might make sense in a country that can control its borders. We cannot do so in the same way because of the open land border with Northern Ireland, which we do not want to close. If the UK, as has been suggested - although I understand that those suggestions are not advanced - were to bring in border quarantine, we might be able to do something on a two-island basis, but it is not going to work on a two-thirds-of-an-island basis.

Non-compliance with the passenger locator form tells us something about non-compliance. We are aware that the PCR test, while it is required and mandatory, is not sufficient on its own. A second test is required within a number of days. I am aware that people coming in from the United Kingdom and other countries, such as South Africa, are supposed to quarantine for 14 days. Is there an exception to that? Is there an exception because the travel is required for business or other reasons? Is there a requirement or is there not? Why are we not providing to our counterparts in Northern Ireland information to the effect that we want an all-Ireland approach? We have to play our part too, so why are we not giving our counterparts information that has been repeatedly requested regarding people who are travelling on so the authorities can follow up on where they are staying? Is the Tánaiste saying the Government is not going to introduce mandatory restrictions, even in light of the high level of non-compliance?

People coming in from the United Kingdom or South Africa — there are no direct flights from South Africa but people could come in from other airports — are required to have a negative PCR test before landing in the country. It is mandatory. They are then strongly advised to self-isolate for 14 days; that is not mandatory.

On sharing information with Northern Ireland, we have an information exchange. I understand there are some difficulties with our sharing data with Northern Ireland. We are very happy to do so, in principle, but I am told there are some difficulties with the format and the details of the requests and so on. We will resolve that. We intend to do so. The big flaw for Ireland in imposing 14-day mandatory quarantine with hotel detention for people arriving in our ports and airports is that it would be largely ineffective because we could not do so on the land border with Northern Ireland. Without stating the obvious, countries that have done this successfully are island states — we are an island geographically but not an island state — or countries such as South Korea, which has a border with North Korea that is of a very different type than ours with Northern Ireland.