The United States, France, Belgium and Luxembourg have been removed from the designated list for mandatory quarantine in Ireland.
Travellers arriving in Ireland from the countries will no longer have to quarantine for 14 days at a hotel facility.
No further countries were added to the list.
The move comes after the EU Commission said it was in discussions with Irish authorities about lifting its quarantine measures for travellers arriving from EU countries.
Didier Reynders, EU Commissioner for Justice, said the Commission is “closely monitoring” the State’s quarantine rules.
Last month, the Commission wrote a letter to the Government asking it to set out the criteria used to determine which countries go on the quarantine list.
A Commission spokesperson said it had concerns about the system’s “proportionality and non-discrimination”.
Regarding hotel quarantine rules in 🇮🇪, the Commission is closely monitoring the situation. We requested & received information on the criteria on which such measures are based. We are now in discussions with 🇮🇪 authorities to see how the lifting of measures can be facilitated.
— Didier Reynders (@dreynders) May 28, 2021
“We requested and received information on the criteria on which such measures are based.
“We are now in discussions with authorities to see how the lifting of measures can be facilitated.”
Extension
On Thursday, the Dáil debated extending the mandatory hotel quarantine system.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly is seeking to extend the system, which is due to expire on June 8th, until the end of July.
Mandatory hotel quarantine has been operational since March 26th.
Mr Donnelly said that the number of variants of Covid-19 has fallen since then.
He told the Dáil that the system is working, adding that Ireland has the most restrictive quarantine system.
As of May 25th, a total of 4,400 people have entered mandatory hotel quarantine.
Of these, there have been 173 Covid-19 detected cases, including 163 residents, nine staff and one unaccompanied minor.
Of these cases, 59 variants of concern were detected.
Mr Donnelly said it included 47 cases of the UK variant and 12 cases of the South Africa variant.
A vote on whether to extend mandatory hotel quarantine is to take place next Wednesday.
