The controversial green list was released in Ireland today. People arriving into Ireland from Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco and San Marino will not have to undergo a mandatory two week quarantine. Is it just me or is the government trying to secure enough Eurovision votes to get us through the semi-finals next year?
The issue with the green list is that Irish people are still being discouraged from travelling abroad? We are advised to stay in Ireland but potential tourists are allowed to come here? American and British people are touring around our countrysides when their country is not on this list? It is all very contradictory, upsetting and confusing.
Some other countries that did not make the final fifteen include France, Spain and Portugal. Passengers from these locations, or those who flew through these countries and other high risk countries will have to fill out a form for contact tracing after arrival and may have to undergo random Covid testing. The list will be reviewed every fortnight.
There has been no shortage in vocal detractors from the current government’s handling of the green list. Opposition party members from Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats have called the list ‘contradictory’ and ‘meaningless’ respectively. Even the Tánaiste (Ireland’s deputy prime-minister for any people outside of Ireland reading this) Leo Varadkar insisted that there needs to be a clear message around the policy. If not, he said, then we would be better off not having a green list.
What’s that I taste on the wind? Delicious irony. The green list was initially proposed by the Fine Gael government in June before Fianna Fáil and The Greens formed the new government alongside them. Do these politicians think that we are a nation of goldfish? Do they think that they can gaslight us repeatedly into believing that we are at fault and just misremembered the last six months?
Varadkar cannot live on the goodwill that he garnered from his handling of the Covid-19 crisis here in Ireland. His ability to stay steely-eyed and focused during a tough four months has been revealed as a cold and unfeeling nature for anybody but himself and his party. Michéal Martin, I’m afraid, has drank from the poisoned chalice. As questions rise about who the actual Taoiseach is in this newly-formed government, I think that sooner or later Martin’s political dream will lie in tatters on the Forum floor.
The Rathpeacon Rambler 