Are we there yet? Your second Travel Megathread (threadbans in OP}

gozunda

CruelSummer wrote: »

Look at the absolute tripe we’re up against in this country. All started Friday with CMO’s black clouds. Then we get NPHET members out drumming up the worrymeters.

Now a Geography teacher / lecturer (ISAG member) acting as an immunologist / virologist - why is this guy given articles in the Independent in relation to an area he is unqualified to talk about?
Who are funding ISAG and why are they continuing to be given a platform here when they haven’t answered key questions as to their use of mis information to achieve their goals & terrorist manuals.
What’s seriously concerning is the clear coordination between NPHET and ISAG with this propaganda.

https://twitter.com/julienmercille/status/1396385403280691200?s=21

What are you on about?

ISAG have nothing to do with the government or even Nphet.

Though it does look like the UK is increasingly facing travel restrictions from a number of EU countries. For example.

Germany is banning travel from UK over Covid Indian variant - where all travellers arriving from the UK will have to submit to a quarantine period of two weeks, regardless of whether they can provide a negative test result for the virus.

Also France is planning putting the UK in a health category of its own, "somewhere in between the strictest measures imposed by France on visitors from India and 15 other countries, and more relaxed requirements for visitors from the EU and some other nations.

jellies

Micky 32 wrote: »

Well with 300k vaccinations planned for this week (290k put into arms last week) shouldn’t take us long to get to the “until most are vaccinated “ status

Yep. And therefore we should be implementing the EU Digital Green Certificate from day 1. Not six weeks later.

Lumen

saabsaab wrote: »

Yes but not out of control no point in importing more. I don't think zero covid is realistic now but until most are vaccinated it's best to restrict air travel. Especially from areas where there are new variants.

I agree that for now we should restrict air travel from GB to vaccinated people (and their PCR tested children), if only to stop other EU countries lumping us in with them.

Preventing the vaccinated from traveling is just stupid.

I don't know if it would work though, cos border.

gozunda

Micky 32 wrote: »

There were no attacks on any posters from me. I attacked the condescending waffling post you made toward said poster. Simple as that. Seeya

Ah my bad only saw this now...
So changed the subject to your comments? OK.
Tbf the only 'waffling' i see comes from your comments constantly berating and winding up others. To- date I've seen some awful excuses by way of discussion but those same comments take the biscuit for sure. But hey no matter.

saabsaab

Micky 32 wrote: »

Well with 300k vaccinations planned for this week (290k put into arms last week including my own) shouldn’t take us long to get to the “until most are vaccinated “ status

That's the plan, yes.

Micky 32

A bit of info :

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/government-to-give-clarity-on-aviation-indoor-hospitality-and-events-next-week-1131603.html

ZX7R

Micky 32 wrote: »

A bit of info :

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/government-to-give-clarity-on-aviation-indoor-hospitality-and-events-next-week-1131603.html

Encouraging to hear the opposition is in favour of quick implementation

Gael23

Is MM getting his €2000 fine for going to Brussels?

sy_flembeck

ZX7R wrote: »

Encouraging to hear the opposition is in favour of quick implementation

Absolutely. Everything else they have shouted for has been implemented!

afatbollix

Well flew in on Friday, It was just great to get on a plane.

I had 2 negitive PCR tests in the two days beforehand. Bit of a queue at passport control mostly due to a shift change.

But a quick look at the results, locator form and asking for proof of vaccinations, and we were through.

Been great being home, Out walking the land, and showing off my 6 month old to her granny.

I'm glad it's all getting back to normal. Isn't it weird I can come in yet if I lived here I would be fined 2k!

Van.Bosch

Gael23 wrote: »

Is MM getting his €2000 fine for going to Brussels?

Yeah of course, he has 2k worth of Bitcoin left from some deals last week.

gozunda

afatbollix wrote: »

Well flew in on Friday, It was just great to get on a plane.

I had 2 negitive PCR tests in the two days beforehand. Bit of a queue at passport control mostly due to a shift change.

But a quick look at the results, locator form and asking for proof of vaccinations, and we were through.

Been great being home, Out walking the land, and showing off my 6 month old to her granny.

I'm glad it's all getting back to normal. Isn't it weird I can come in yet if I lived here I would be fined 2k!

The fine is simply to discourage non essential travel to help keep the infection rate down whilst everyone gets vaccinated.

I too will be glad when things get back to normal ...

afatbollix

gozunda wrote: »

The fine is simply to discourage non essential travel to help keep the infection rate down whilst everyone gets vaccinated.

I too will be glad when things get back to normal ...

Shouldn’t I be fined the 2k so? Wouldn’t that make more sense? To keep us bad people out?

VG31

ZX7R wrote: »

Encouraging to hear the opposition is in favour of quick implementation

Many of the those TDs were shouting for MHQ a few months ago. Nevertheless, it's still positive.

Klonker

Can't believe some on here are trying to argue the €2,000 fine per person for 'non essential travel' to a port or airport is not stopping us from travelling abroad and is not also out of sync with the rest of Europe. I'm actually embarrassed for those posters who try to make that argument.

gozunda

afatbollix wrote: »

Shouldn’t I be fined the 2k so? Wouldn’t that make more sense? To keep us bad people out?

I dunno - was your travel essential? I dont think I referred to any one as 'bad'. Do you think you're a "bad' person?

You may have noticed my comment was not about 'you' but rather why we are currently discouraging non essential travel whilst we get back to normal. Or do you think that's simply bolloxs?

CruelSummer

gozunda wrote: »

What are you on about?

ISAG have nothing to do with the government or even Nphet.

Though it does look like the UK is increasingly facing travel restrictions from a number of EU countries. For example.

Germany is banning travel from UK over Covid Indian variant - where all travellers arriving from the UK will have to submit to a quarantine period of two weeks, regardless of whether they can provide a negative test result for the virus.

Also France is planning putting the UK in a health category of its own, "somewhere in between the strictest measures imposed by France on visitors from India and 15 other countries, and more relaxed requirements for visitors from the EU and some other nations.

You don’t know that ISAG don’t have anything to do with NPHET. Neither do I. But seeing coordinated posts & tweets between the two is a real worry for the citizens of this state. It also discredits NPHET, our public health body.
The main concern is government don’t take into account the severe consequences of these prolonged closures & want to continue to hide behind NPHET advice, thus making them more powerful than they need to be.

This week will be D day for our future connectivity, airline industry and regional airports. While Germany & France might be playing some Brexit politics with the U.K. re travel. Spain & Portugal are welcoming them with open arms.

gozunda

Klonker wrote: »

Can't believe some on here are trying to argue the €2,000 fine per person for 'non essential travel' to a port or airport is not stopping us from travelling abroad and is not also out of sync with the rest of Europe. I'm actually embarrassed for those posters who try to make that argument.

Well klonker if you're referring to my comment you seem to be barking up the wrong tree. I fact I'd say you're in the wrong forest.

Because no one is being stopped from travelling abroad. This has been endlessly explained on this thread. And yet the same misinformation persists.

And no one is being forced to go to an airport or port. But if you have to for essential reasons - there's no fine at all. But if you want to travel for non essential reasons you won't be stopped either but you may well get a fine. Your own choice really.

And the thing about Europe - practically all countries are out of sync with each other atm. So who is saying otherwise? Will that change? I think it will. But for the moment fines are simply there to discourage non essential travel whilst the vaccination programme is being rolled out. Or do you think that's bolloxs too?

One last little thing about being "embarrassed" - is that it is an emotion you can only attribute to yourself and not others by way of projection. So you may be embarrassed about your lack of empathy for example or that you've poohed your pants in public but that's about as far as it gets.

gozunda

CruelSummer wrote: »

You don’t know that ISAG don’t have anything to do with NPHET. Neither do I. But seeing coordinated posts & tweets between the two is a real worry for the citizens of this state. It also discredits NPHET, our public health body.
The main concern is government don’t take into account the severe consequences of these prolonged closures & want to continue to hide behind NPHET advice, thus making them more powerful than they need to be.
This week will be D day for our future connectivity, airline industry and regional airports. While Germany & France might be playing some Brexit politics with the U.K. re travel. Spain & Portugal are welcoming them with open arms.

Well we do tbf

Nphet was set to advise the government on covid related matters.

ISAG are an independent group with no remit to advise anyone. That they get media to quote them seems to be mainly for clicks and to sell advertising. The main place I see them referred to is here and the other Covid sceptic thread. I am a citizen of this state and they don't worry me even the tiniest bit. I certainly don't think about them or look up their tweets.

If you have proof they are indeed advising Nphet - by all means post it here.

Otherwise that just conspiracy theory nonsense.

You say "While Germany & France might be playing some Brexit politics with the U.K. re travel. Spain & Portugal are welcoming them with open arms"

Not quite such a rosy picture tnh. Spain is still on the UKs non essential travel list while next door Portugal are not. Are the UK playing Brexit style politics with Spain or is there some shadowy cabal there as well? Or was Germany playing games with us when they banned people from Ireland earlier in the year. Or are they simply imposing restrictions to help manage the rate of infection from other countries?

brickster69

Lumen wrote: »

I agree that for now we should restrict air travel from GB to vaccinated people (and their PCR tested children), if only to stop other EU countries lumping us in with them.

Preventing the vaccinated from traveling is just stupid.

I don't know if it would work though, cos border.

Good idea, let's restrict air travel from the Uk and accept air travel from Europe who are 20X worse.

Klonker

gozunda wrote: »

Well klonker if you're referring to my comment you seem to be barking up the wrong tree. I fact I'd say you're in the wrong forest.

Because no one is being stopped from travelling abroad. This has been endlessly explained on this thread. And yet the same misinformation persists.

And no one is being forced to go to an airport or port. But if you have to for essential reasons - there's no fine at all. But if you want to travel for non essential reasons you won't be stopped either but you may well get a fine. Your own choice really.

And the thing about Europe - practically all countries are out of sync with each other atm. So who is saying otherwise? Will that change? I think it will. But for the moment fines are simply there to discourage non essential travel whilst the vaccination programme is being rolled out. Or do you think that's bolloxs too?

One last little thing about being "embarrassed" - is that it is an emotion you can only attribute to yourself and not others by way of projection. So you may be embarrassed about your lack of empathy for example or that you've poohed your pants in public but that's about as far as it gets.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I'll tell my Polish friend that he's not actually banned from going to Poland with his wife and two children to see their parents and grandparents, they just need to pay a €8,000 fine to do so. How have so many of us not been aware of this large loophole until now? If someone asked any reasonable person can you drive a car in Ireland without a driver's licence they would say no, they wouldn't say yes you can but you would be brought to court/fined etc., same logic applies here. If this is the kind of nonsense people supporting our travel restrictions you know the have no logical argument.

No, only one European country has a €2,000 fine in place for non essential travel to any country at the moment. Has any other country have MHQ apart from the UK? Did any other country have construction closed this year? Any other countries have non essential retail closed until May? Do you honestly believe Ireland's level of restrictions have been on a similar level to any other country in Europe throughout the pandemic.

gozunda

Klonker wrote: »

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I'll tell my Polish friend that he's not actually banned from going to Poland with his wife and two children to see their parents and grandparents, they just need to pay a €8,000 fine to do so. How have so many of us not been aware of this large loophole until now? If someone asked any reasonable person can you drive a car in Ireland without a driver's licence they would say no, they wouldn't say yes you can but you would be brought to court/fined etc., same logic applies here. If this is the kind of nonsense people supporting our travel restrictions you know the have no logical argument.

No, only one European country has a €2,000 fine in place for non essential travel to any country at the moment. Has any other country have MHQ apart from the UK? Did any other country have construction closed this year? Any other countries have non essential retail closed until May? Do you honestly believe Ireland's level of restrictions have been on a similar level to any other country in Europe throughout the pandemic.

Well again - is the travel essential? No problem and no fine if there is.

And the logic behind it remains. The fine is simply there to discourage non essential travel to keep the infection rate down whilst we roll out our vaccination programme.

How is any of that difficult to understand unless deliberately?

So you now want to play move the goal posts with but - but - but.

You were the one saying people were claiming all EU countries restrictions were synchronised.

I pointed out thah no one I knew was claiming that. All EU countries have had different restrictions. Why do you think otherwise?

Similar levels? Yeah absolutely - I think we should have had curfews here too and mandated outdoor mask wearing as well etc etc (that's sarcasm btw).

Klonker

gozunda wrote: »

Well again - is the travel essential? No problem and no fine if there is.

And the logic behind it remains. The fine is simply there to discourage non essential travel to keep the infection rate down whilst we roll out our vaccination programme.

How is any of that difficult to understand unless deliberately?

So you now want to play move the goal posts with but - but - but.

You were the one saying people were claiming all EU countries restrictions were synchronised.

I pointed out thah no one I knew was claiming that. All EU countries have had different restrictions. Why do you think otherwise?

Similar levels? Yeah absolutely - I think we should have had curfews here too and mandated outdoor mask wearing as well etc etc (that's sarcasm btw).

I understand why the fine is in place, my understanding of it does not mean its not disproportionate. Why do you keep mentioning essential travel? I obviously don't have an issue with essential travel being allowed. Ah, maybe it's to do with the example I gave that is not classed as essential, the Polish family of four who you say are "discouraged" but not stopped from travelling abroad with the €8,000 fine they'd recieve. Oh, and you wrote all that without answer my question about the driver's licence,
'difficult to understand unless deliberately?'

Where was I claiming about synchronised EU restrictions? News to me Talk about putting words in someone's mouth.

Another question for you that you probably won't answer. Over the whole pandemic, do you think any European country has had, in balance, harsher or similar levels of restrictions as Ireland? And if yes who?

Klonker

Klonker wrote: »

they just need to pay a €8,000 fine to do so.

Incorrect. Children don't get fined.

Klonker wrote: »

If someone asked any reasonable person can you drive a car in Ireland without a driver's licence they would say no, they wouldn't say yes you can but you would be brought to court/fined etc.,

Well I am delighted to explain this too you. You see, if you drive without a license you would in fact be stopped. You would then be removed from the car and the car would be seized thereby physically stopping you from driving.

When you travel, you continue to travel. No one physically stops you. No one takes the aeroplane. You do in fact, travel to wherever you're going.

There is both a legal and physical difference between them.

Klonker wrote: »

No, only one European country has a €2,000 fine in place for non essential travel to any country at the moment. Has any other country have MHQ apart from the UK? Did any other country have construction closed this year? Any other countries have non essential retail closed until May? Do you honestly believe Ireland's level of restrictions have been on a similar level to any other country in Europe throughout the pandemic.

Did Ireland ban people from going outside completely? Did Ireland at any stage quarantine towns and fine people 600 euro for collecting sometime from the local bus station? Does Ireland fine people for not wearing a mask even when alone on an empty street?

Gael23 wrote: »

Is MM getting his €2000 fine for going to Brussels?

essential business travel is exempt for absolutely everyone.

afatbollix wrote: »

Out walking the land, and showing off my 6 month old to her granny.

I'm glad it's all getting back to normal. Isn't it weird I can come in yet if I lived here I would be fined 2k!

You are subject to quarantine. currently breaching the quarantine regulations are subject to a 5k fine.

Klonker

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

Incorrect. Children don't get fined.



Well I am delighted to explain this too you. You see, if you drive without a license you would in fact be stopped. You would then be removed from the car and the car would be seized thereby physically stopping you from driving.

When you travel, you continue to travel. No one physically stops you. No one takes the aeroplane. You do in fact, travel to wherever you're going.

There is both a legal and physical difference between them.



Did Ireland ban people from going outside completely? Did Ireland at any stage quarantine towns and fine people 600 euro for collecting sometime from the local bus station? Does Ireland fine people for not wearing a mask even when alone on an empty street?



essential business travel is exempt for absolutely everyone.



You are subject to quarantine. currently breaching the quarantine regulations are subject to a 5k fine.

Does it say in the legislation that children can't be fined? Sorry but I'm not going to just take your word for it, there's 4k at stake here.

So another who doesn't answer my driver's license question. If someone asked you can you drive a car in Ireland without a driver's licence how would you answer? The answer is yes if you use the same logic as you like to use for the travel fine. Any reasonable person would answer no for both.

Didn't answer my second question either on whether you think Irelands restrictions in general have been harsher than everywhere else in Europe. So you reply to my post and don't answer the two questions I asked

Klonker

Klonker wrote: »

Does it say in the legislation that children can't be fined? Sorry but I'm not going to just take your word for it, there's 4k at stake here.

So another who doesn't answer my driver's license question. If someone asked you can you drive a car in Ireland without a driver's licence how would you answer? The answer is yes if you use the same logic as you like to use for the travel fine. Any reasonable person would answer no for both.

Didn't answer my second question either on whether you think Irelands restrictions in general have been harsher than everywhere else in Europe. So you reply to my post and don't answer the two questions I asked

A, So read it yourself then

B, I very clearly did what the driving question. I explained what would happen to you and why it's a legal and physically different scenario. You have just chosen to ignore that it seems.

If my previous answer isn't clear, let's try another.

You want to travel to Spain by air. You meet Gardai enroute. You finish in Spain after flying there.

You drive without a license to Galway. You meet Gardai enroute. You do not continue to drive to Galway after the interaction.


C, in terms of length? Yes I would agree. The length of time has had an effect on people. Severity in regards the actual restrictions? Ireland never went as far as other states in certain areas, went further in others. Overall again, yes I'm thoroughly sick if it. I travel, this has effected my family a lot.

My personal opinion and how this effects me doesn't change the legal realities though.

gozunda

Klonker wrote: »

I understand why the fine is in place, my understanding of it does not mean its not disproportionate. Why do you keep mentioning essential travel? I obviously don't have an issue with essential travel being allowed. Ah, maybe it's to do with the example I gave that is not classed as essential, the Polish family of four who you say are "discouraged" but not stopped from travelling abroad with the €8,000 fine they'd recieve. Oh, and you wrote all that without answer my question about the driver's licence,
'difficult to understand unless deliberately?'

The presence of a fine certainly doesn't mean it is 'disproportionate' either. Though that word does seem to have become a bit of a thing on this thread.

Why did I mention "essential travel". One reason mainly because you completely ignored it as if it didn't exist. It does - people can still travel and not be fined

So if your "Polish friends" visit is not essential but they insist on doing so - you reckon that there's no issue with that either here or in Poland?. Where their parents/ grandparents are? And thers absolutely no risk to same or at least they don't care if that's what you're implying? But as pointed out by Niner - Kids don't count. Do your Polish friends accept that non essential travel for the moment is advised against in order to keep our infection rate down or?

As to the driver licence idea or was it an attempt at an analogy? Tbh I wasn't sure. There was no question mark btw. First those type of daft analogies tend to go down deep rabbit holes of arguments along the lines of yes it is / no its not similar or different . And whilst I can see at least one large flaw in it as an argument - my preference is to avoid that type of whataboutery tbf.

Klonker wrote: »

Where was I claiming about synchronised EU restrictions? News to me Talk about putting words in someone's mouth.

Nope. Incorrect. Here the reference from your previous comment. Your words. Your mouth.

Can't believe some on here are trying to argue the €2,000 fine per person for 'non essential travel' to a port or airport is not stopping us from travelling abroad and is not also out of sync with the rest of Europe.

Klonker wrote: »

Another question for you that you probably won't answer. Over the whole pandemic, do you think any European country has had, in balance, harsher or similar levels of restrictions as Ireland? And if yes who?

Well I've answered everything else even though you clearly didn't like my answers (or other posters) I guess that probably won't change with that new question either.

What I will say is all EU countries have had restrictions and many have had a range of different restrictions. These have varied over time. Enforcement from country to country has also varied. And this makes any meaningful comparison almost impossible. The 'nine grounds' used for the stringency indexes seem to be somewhat arbitrary imho.

I'd agree we've had a fairly comprehensive restrictions here with the result we now have one of the lowest case and death rates compared to our closest EU neighbours. So have the restrictions to date worked? Yeah I believe they have.

https://i.imgflip.com/5aotda.jpg

Lumen

brickster69 wrote: »

Good idea, let's restrict air travel from the Uk and accept air travel from Europe who are 20X worse.

I didn't say that. I think we should apply the same restrictions as to the EU, and at the same time, i.e. earliest possible (July 1) implementation of the Covid cert and ditching quarantine.

With a largely synchronized vaccine rollout across the EU, it makes no sense to have travel restrictions between countries without travel restrictions within countries.

The only bit I'm unclear about is allowing non-immune people to travel to areas that have outbreaks (as far as I can tell all epidemiologists expect outbreaks until we have herd immunity). Do we rely on local lockdowns in those places or require people to quarantine on return?

Del Griffith

The idea that you are perfectly free to travel you just need to pay 2000 euro per head is beyond disingenuous, to the point of being either ridiculously stupid or intentionally obtuse for the purpose of winding up the thread (I believe its the latter but the former is also possible I suppose).

And if this actually was the Government line, which its not, it would arguably be even worse as this would basically be saying the wealthy are free to travel while the less well off are being prevented in practical terms through the imposition on them of a state imposed financial burden they cannot afford, by design.

It's widely referred to media as the travel ban, because in effect that's what it is.

JTMan

Ministers want EU travel to be allowed before the end of July according to the Irish Times here.

Minister for Public Expenditure Michael McGrath and Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris separately signalled on Sunday that the three sectors – aviation; indoor hospitality; and sport and live cultural events – would be in line for timely reopenings this summer.

A number of other Ministers said privately that the “mood music” was very encouraging.

While the Government could delay the introduction of the EU-wide digital green certificate for travel until the middle of August, Ministers are pressing for it to be introduced before the end of July.