When Covid-19 first flared in Ireland last year, I asked the Tánaiste, who was then the Taoiseach, to stop the flights which were coming in from northern Italy. He said "No", and when I asked why, he said that the European Centre for Disease Control, ECDC, was advising against it. I asked what was the ECDC's rationale for advising against it and the Tánaiste said that he did not know. I was shocked at the time that the leader of a country would make a decision of that import without understanding the rationale for it. Those flights went ahead, the illness was seeded and we had a massive increase in Covid-19 cases after that.

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, yesterday stated that international travel is not a big contributor to the number of Covid-19 cases in the State. In the same breath, he then said that the British variant of Covid-19 is now responsible for 63% of cases in this State. It is now 333 days since Covid-19 came to our shores. I rang the Department of Foreign Affairs this morning to find out when the details of the new arrangements are going to be published. The response was that the Department did not know. The new arrangements for protecting-----

I thank Deputy Tóibín, but his time is up. I call the Tánaiste to respond.

I remember well that at the time the ECDC, the World Health Organization, WHO, the Chief Medical Officer, CMO, and NPHET all advised against stopping flights from Italy because that sort of action was at the time seen as being ineffective. Much has changed and a great deal of advice has changed since then. The Deputy can go back and check over that from the press conferences etc. What we know now is that Covid-19 was present in Ireland well before that, and that someone had sadly died in Cork University Hospital, CUH, many weeks before the Italian rugby match and the associated Italian flights. It is likely that Covid-19 entered Ireland in several locations at several times.