Holidaymakers account for 66% of Irish people arriving into the country

More countries are to be added to the mandatory hotel quarantining list after the Government received further public health advice on the matter. File image.

Fines for non-essential foreign travel are to be quadrupled from €500 to €2,000 as Irish holidaymakers continue to make up two-thirds of those landing here.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has asked Health Minister Stephen Donnelly to sign off on the increase to try to stop people going on holidays abroad.

Figures released by the Government show that more than 5,200 people landed in Dublin Airport last week who were travelling for non-essential reasons.

Assistant secretary general at the Department of the Taoiseach, Liz Canavan, said this represented two-thirds of the Irish people who had returned to the country, which she dubbed a “very concerning statistic”.

"While we would all love and need a holiday, now is not the time to travel," she said.

Transport Minister Eamon Ryan said the Government will not hold back on introducing further Covid-19 restrictions if people continue to flout travel rules.

"It would be unfair if we at home were restricting our movements and our lives in many different ways when non-essential travel was seen to be facilitated," he told the Dáil.

More countries are to be added to the mandatory hotel quarantining list after the Government received further public health advice on the matter.

Legislation to allow for hotel quarantining is due to come before Cabinet on Tuesday and is expected to pass the Dáil shortly afterwards.

Vaccines

Meanwhile, GPs say they can give all mobile over-85-year-olds their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine by March 8 and have them fully vaccinated within three months.

The vaccinations for that age group are to begin next Monday.

Dr Denis McCauley, GP representative for the Irish Medical Organisation, said in Dublin, 85 large practices will begin vaccinating from Monday. Smaller practices, with fewer than 200 patients in Dublin will go to the Dublin City University campus next week.

"That will be the first week," said Dr McCauley. "Then the second week there will be 384 practices done as well as the smaller practices in Cork."

He said these are GP-led vaccinated clinics, meaning GPs will be giving their own patients their vaccines. 

"Three weeks from next Monday, we would hope that every over-85-year-old who is mobile will be able to have had their first dose," Dr McCauley told RTÉ radio. "It is a four-week cycle to the next dose." 

He said that while GPs would like to have the whole over-85 cohort vaccinated in eight weeks, supply issues mean it will "probably be 11 to 12 weeks". 

There is no clarity on the timeline for vaccinating elderly housebound patients due to the delicacy of the Pfizer vaccine. Dr McCauley said GPs will work with the HSE to get them vaccinated as soon as possible.

In Cork, GPs who have a small number of patients aged over-85 will arrange for them to go to a mass vaccination clinic at the Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) campus. GPs will contact their patients to arrange a time.

Vaccines will be transported from the National Cold Chain Centre in Dublin to each practice, starting with a weekly delivery and building up to daily deliveries as supply increases.

It can be stored by doctors in their normal fridges for up to five days. When the vials are opened, doctors have two hours to mix it with a solution and then use it within six hours.

Cork GP Dr Mary Favier said the CIT clinics will happen at weekends. She said patients who do not have a GP should contact the HSE helpline on 1850 24 1850. Anyone cocooning in a different area will be contacted by their regular GP who will arrange a vaccine slot.

Meanwhile, the HSE has said the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine to healthcare workers began on Monday. A total of 15,000 doses of AstraZeneca are this week being administered as a first dose to prioritised frontline health care workers from acute hospital, community, private, and voluntary health care services.

A further 54 deaths and 1,006 cases were confirmed last night. There were 1,032 Covid-19 patients in hospital yesterday morning, 173 of them in ICU.