Michael O'Leary tells Government to 'get the finger out' on international travel

Michael O’Leary: 'We don't need more restriction. We need a date to reopen.'

Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary has called on the Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan to “get the finger out” and to announce a date for the resumption of international travel.

Mr O’Leary said Irish people are “ignoring the Government” and booking flights to Spain and Portugal from the middle of June.

The Government’s job is to act on behalf of everyone, including the travel and tourism industries, and not to “keep deferring” to the civil servants on the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) he said.

Ryanair was moving planes out of Ireland, he said. 

I don’t need Ireland. We can move to the UK.

Mandatory hotel quarantine had been “completely useless,” the Ryanair boss said, as variants had still entered the country. 

Continuing his attack, he said Eamon Ryan was “without doubt one of the worst ministers for transport ever", adding that people from the UK should be allowed to travel to Ireland as their country was already 80% vaccinated. 

EU arrivals should be allowed from July 1 as 80% of adults will be vaccinated by then. Ireland will have an 80% level of “dosage” by the end of June, Mr O'Leary said.

If visitors from Europe were not allowed by then, the Irish tourism industry would be on its knees. UK visitors were needed as Irish people were not going to "staycation" in Dublin.

There had been a 10 point recovery plan for the aviation industry on the minister’s desk since last July, but nothing had been done.

“Eamon Ryan is a nice man, but he is ineffective," he said. 

Ireland was the only country where people from the UK could not travel even though they shared a land border. 

This is all arrant nonsense, we don’t need any more (travel restrictions), we need a date.

Overall, Ireland had overreacted to the Covid crisis, Mr O'Leary said. 

Nphet’s job was not to run the economy and yet the Government and ministers felt the need to defer to the civil servants.

The real question now was an effort going to be made to save the tourism industry, he said.