Summer At Home, Not Away

Sunseekers’ hopes dashed by Taoiseach. Phase one of easing restrictions on target

GETTING BUSIER People relax at Dollymount yesterday

Sunseekers will have to shelve holiday plans after Leo Varadkar said nobody will be heading off for “months, not weeks”.

The Taoiseach was speaking in the Dail as he told TDs he is confident we can begin a substantial rollback of the nine-week lockdown on Monday.

And last night health chiefs are understood to have advised the Government they can proceed with phase one of their roadmap to recovery next week.

Mr Varadkar said: “It is our policy to resume normal travel for business, leisure, study and visits to friends and relatives as soon as it is safe to do so but not before.

“This is something the European Commission is currently working on.

“However, it is going to be months, not weeks, before this is possible.”

The Taoiseach also told the Dail the first steps “to reawaken our economy will be done in a slow and gradual way”.

FOCUS

He added: “At all times we will maintain an intense focus on the virus and follow four guiding principles – isolate, test, trace and treat – so that we can quickly react if things go wrong and if there is an increase in cases.

“As we are seeing around the world, this is not a straight path.

“Sometimes progress is halted and there are setbacks.

“We have seen examples of this in Germany, South Korea and, again, most recently in Wuhan.