Irish Borders Must Be Closed To Slow Covid-19
Éirígí is calling for all Irish ports and airports to be closed to all passengers with the exception of returning Irish citizens or residents and those who are directly involved in the fight against Covid-19. Speaking from Dublin, Cathaoirleach Éirigí, Brian Leeson said,
“On March 10th Éirígí called for the introduction of travel restrictions from Covid-19 hotspots and the introduction of thermal and other health checks on all people entering Ireland.
Those calls were ignored and passenger traffic has continued as normal into the country for the last 12 days. Some of the thousands of people who have entered the country during that time were undoubtedly infected with Covid-19, making an already bad situation even worse.
As an island, Ireland has a significant advantage over other countries when it comes to disease control. We must now use that advantage and close all ports and airports across the thirty-two counties. Only an all-island strategy can slow and ultimately defeat Covid-19.
We need to work together to buy time for the HSE and NHS to make every possible preparation for the storm that is coming.
Only returning Irish citizens or residents and those directly involved involved in the fight against Covid-19 should be permitted to enter the country for the next four weeks, at which point the situation can be reviewed.
We believe it is likely that many Irish emigrants will want to return home in the coming days and weeks, particularly from Britain as as the consequences of Boris Johnson’s genocidal Covid-19 strategy become clear.
Our people cannot be denied access to their own country but it is essential that everyone entering the country undergoes health checks and a compulsory, monitored fourteen-day period of isolation regardless of the results of those checks. The days of politely asking people to self-isolate are now past.
Sealing our borders in this way is absolutely necessary as part of a strategy to slow the spread of Covid-19. A failure to do so will undermine all of our collective efforts to minimise the damage that the virus does to our families and communities. It needs to happen now.“