There's been some scenes at Dublin airport this week...
Nearly half of people arriving in Ireland were returning from their holidays this week, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said.
Speaking at a parliamentary party meeting last night, the Taoiseach said that of the 800 people who came into the country through airports, 542 people were Irish and 397 were returning from holidays.
RTÉ News reports that Martin told TDs and Senators that the government is considering adding more countries to the mandatory quarantine list. The updated list now includes South Africa and Brazil.
This comes after an RTÉ Prime Time report depicted hundreds of holidaymakers returning to Ireland earlier this week.
Footage included on the programme showed tanned passengers with large suitcases entering Dublin airport from Lanzarote. As a result of the show, 'Lanzarote' was trending on Twitter in Ireland.
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."
