Irish Examiner View: Set travel target to lift flagging spirits

Vaccination certificates should be enough to allow a resumption to normal tourism hot spots.

Striking an effective, fair balance between carrot and stick is never easy, even less so in a pandemic when the situation changes almost as often as the official messaging. Nevertheless, if disciplines are seen to be fair and rational, the great majority of people will buy into a common purpose to achieve the over-riding objective — an Ireland and a world where Covid-19 is managed, even if not controlled or eradicated.

Now that we have been in lockdown for a year, and as those dependent on face-to-face businesses struggle to deal with their new, extremely difficult reality, maybe it is time for a bit more carrot. Those two issues, business survival and encouragement where possible, came together at this week’s EU leaders’ online summit. Greece, Spain, Malta, and other sun destinations argued that vaccine certificates should be enough to allow a resumption, or at least the start of a resumption to normal tourism to the continent’s hot spots. Though novel in a European context, the idea of mandatory vaccination certification is common enough. African, South American, and other destinations demand a ‘vaccine passport’ covering smallpox, yellow fever, and other contagious maladies. An entirely sensible precaution.

Though such a prospect would, for those who might be vaccinated, change the complexion of the looming summer, Ireland joined the countries who dismissed the idea as “premature”. That position is arguable but it is far from premature to define the conditions that would make such a relaxation, such a sanity saver, possible. Surely a set of targets allowing those vaccinated travellers lucky enough to be able to escape to a foreign shore in future could be designed to make the hamster wheel of lockdown after lockdown more tolerable? At a moment when spirits seem to be flagging, what a spur that would be.