Ireland's flight restrictions slammed as 'bizarre' by O'Leary

Ryanair chief Michael O'Leary has criticised the government's “bizarre” flight restrictions.

Mr. O'Leary said that the Irish government's flight restrictions “are by far and away the worst."

“Even as the rest of Europe opened up to intra EU air travel on the first of July the Irish government, which has abrogated all management of this to a bunch of medics and civil servants called NPHET, has kept Ireland completely locked up.

"We are not even allowed to travel to the UK despite the fact that people can travel across the border to Northern Ireland with no restrictions.

“We've had Ireland completely locked up since the first of July, no tourists are welcomed, we are closed for business.

"We can't send any of our people to the UK or Germany for example to meet airports without quarantining them for 14 days.

"Despite that, Ireland has one of the highest and fastest rising Covid case rates in Europe.”

O'Leary said that the Irish and UK government's focus on Covid case rates is “completely misplaced."

“What is evident in the second wave is that rising Covid case rates is not translating into hospitals being overwhelmed or ICUs being flooded with people.

“In Ireland our hospitals and ICUs are essentially empty and yet we are pandering to this Covid case rate nonsense, while the Germans and Italians have been allowing intra EU travel since the first of July.

O'Leary predicted that “the winter of 2020 will be write off” due to a resurgence of Covid-19 in many parts of Europe and the continuation of travel restrictions.