Truly wild scenes from Dublin Airport, in the middle of a pandemic.
Viewers were outraged on Tuesday night when RTÉ's Prime Time footage showed freshly tanned Irish holidaymakers returning to Dublin Airport from Lanzarote.
The report showed a number of Irish people who had just landed in Dublin Airport, fresh off a flight from Lanzarote.
As a result of the show, 'Lanzarote' was trending on Twitter in Ireland, with many taking to social media to complain about the holiday-goers.
The Labour Party's Alan Kelly used this as an opportunity to call the government's travel restrictions "half-baked", and say that stronger measures "have to be put in".
Speaking on the same programme, Kelly said: "Is it really credible to think that a flight load of people who actually made the decision to go out to Lanzarote are actually going to come home and quarantine in their houses?
"The idea that they'd actually go to Lanzarote in the first place says a lot... This is half-baked. This is not going to work. We're going to have to have mandatory quarantine in this country."
Speaking of the new Covid-19 variants, Kelly said: "These variants are on tour. They're on tour around the world. We're as likely to get somebody coming in and spreading this variant from Lanzarote, Lisbon and London as we are from Brazil or South Africa."
https://twitter.com/labour/status/1354194710655627264?s=20
As it stands, in Ireland, individuals are not permitted to travel outside of their 5km radius, preventing trips to the airport for non-essential travel. Speaking earlier this week,
Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan said that current restrictions on travel may become stricter as time goes on.
Passengers arriving into Ireland without a negative PCR test in the 72 hours before arrival will have to stay in quarantine hotels for at least five days, under new plans expected to be approved by Cabinet on Tuesday.
