Minister for Health Simon Harris says new measures making it mandatory for all travellers arriving in Ireland to provide an address to gardaí and to self-isolate there for two weeks are in keeping with World Health Organization advice

Minister Harris says that from next week anyone coming into the country will have to fill out a passenger location form and it will be an offence not to fill out the form. He says the data will be a “huge assistance” in contact tracing.

Minister Harris has said it was ‘absolutely necessary and right’ for the government to secure extra capacity within the private health sector.

He says he intends to exercise a built-in review of the contract with private hospitals.

Asked why the government is now making it mandatory for people arriving in Ireland to fill in a passenger location form, Minister Harris says we now have to do everything possible to keep Covid-19 suppressed and the risk of imported cases is “a very real risk”

Mr Harris says it will be an offence to put the wrong information on a passenger location form. People have to provide an address for where they intend to stay for the next 14 days, with the minister saying forms will be emailed to travellers before they arrive in the country

Minister Harris says the number of people travelling into Ireland is very low, with the majority of those who are travelling made up of Irish people travelling home

Minister Harris says some of the measures being put in place by Ireland and other nations will actually be an enabler for travel, “but just not today or tomorrow”