Do I need a Covid-19 test before travelling to Ireland?

Q A relative has just passed away in Ireland, and I need to get there for the funeral. But I cannot figure out what the current travel rules are, except that I have to get a test before travelling to Ireland. Will a text from the NHS Covid drive-through test suffice to prove a negative result?

Nothing else is clear online on regards to Ireland, and I am unsure if I will need to get a test before returning home – and/or go into quarantine in the UK when I get back?

Name supplied

A I am very sorry to hear of your sad loss. This is a dreadful time for bereaved families. Besides the profound grief of losing a loved one, they must deal with a tangle of restrictions imposed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

UK-Ireland travel is as uncomplicated as international travel gets, but that still means some strict rules. Ireland requires everyone to take PCR Covid-19 test in the 72 hours prior to arrival in the republic. While NHS offers PCR tests, these are strictly for people who think they may be infected with coronavirus, rather than to facilitate travel. You will need to source a private test, likely to cost around £150. That should mean you can fly to Dublin (very few air routes are available). But the next hurdle is the quarantine rules that apply in Ireland.

“Public health advice is that anyone who travels from GB to Ireland should self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival,” says the Irish Embassy in London. “Self-isolation means staying indoors and completely avoiding contact with other people.”

This is completely incompatible with attending a funeral, so I urge you to contact the embassy to discuss options. The mission in London says: “If you have a genuine humanitarian emergency requiring immediate travel, please contact us for advice and consular assistance at irishembassylondon@dfa.ie or on 020 7235 2171.”

I have heard good things about the help and care offered by embassy staff, and I hope they can make arrangements for you that will allow you to attend the funeral.

Returning to the UK should be relatively benign. Ireland is in the Common Travel area (along with the four UK nations, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands), and is the one foreign country from which neither testing nor quarantine is required.

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Q We are currently in Spain on a site in a motorhome and have been here since September 2020. We hear that Spain, along with the US, may be added to the “red list”. We have a ferry booked in mid-March from Santander to Portsmouth. There seems to be no information on how or if we will have to quarantine. Is Portsmouth one of the quarantine hubs, and what happens to our motorhome should we be forced to stay in a hotel for 10 nights?

Robert H

A The government has leaked to a friendly newspaper that Spain, as well as the US, could be added to the list of 33 countries from which arrivals to the UK must go into hotel quarantine.

Such a move would be extremely disruptive: Spain is by far the most popular location for British travellers. Adding it to the red list would affect more people than those arriving from the existing 33 nations combined. As with your case, many of the people affected will have their own vehicles – either sailing direct from Spain to the UK, or driving through France and then taking a ferry or Eurotunnel to southern England.

The logistics are feasible, since there are far more empty hotel beds in Britain than there are people travelling to the UK from Spain. But the existing system would need to be greatly expanded, to include one or more Channel ports as well as airports such as Manchester. There would also need to be recognition of the needs of people like you to have security for your motorhome.

Such a move would push the prospect of a swift return to outbound tourism from the UK even further into the future, and I think might prove increasingly unpopular as the vaccine programme rolls out and public demands for unlocking increase. So I think it is unlikely to happen. If I am wrong, then it is possible the many thousands of British people in Spain will be given weeks of warning – as travellers in the current 33 received.

But if it is introduced overnight, I predict that many of the long-stay visitors to Spain will simply remain there for weeks longer than intended, waiting for the move to be reversed. That strategy would collide with the new Brexit reality that British travellers cannot spend more than 90 days in the Schengen Area, which means the end of March for people who were in the EU at the start of the year. But it still looks like the least bad plan: there is a good chance hotel quarantine will end before Easter and/or that Spain will offer some leniency.

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Q Why are you telling folk to book holidays when government advice is not to travel? Clearly, you are out of touch with reality.

David M

A As I have made clear, leisure travel is currently illegal within and beyond the UK as governments seek to manage the coronavirus pandemic. Measures are getting tougher: to quote the start of one of my articles this week, “As the most onerous restrictions ever imposed on travellers to the UK take effect …”. Ministers including the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, have repeatedly urged prospective holidaymakers not to book. On Tuesday Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said it was “highly unlikely that overseas holidays will be possible or advisable” in summer.

Yet such a barrage of negative views does not make it wrong for companies to offer holidays at home and abroad, or for people to book them – fully aware that they may not go ahead.

As we endure a third lockdown, many of us want something to look forward to; anticipation is a really valuable element of any holiday. So I am happy to explain that it is perfectly rational to book a holiday so long as you are comfortable with the conditions. Anyone wanting a foreign trip can book a package holiday with the likes of Tui, Jet2 Holidays or Virgin Holidays, safe in the knowledge that they will either get their dream holiday – or a full refund, if this appalling pandemic takes another turn for the worse.

UK operators including Butlins, Center Parcs, Haven and Forest Holidays have even more customer-friendly refund policies. They go well beyond their legal obligations, broadly offering full cash refunds if you decide not to go ahead with your trip – even if the holiday venue is open.

I don't recommend booking a DIY trip or going through an unfamiliar online travel agent in these uncertain times.

When leisure travel is once again permitted, it is of course a personal decision whether or not to go on holiday – legally, safely and responsibly.

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Q Any insight into the plans for easyJet flying out of Stansted airport this year? All I can book currently is limited flights to Edinburgh and Amsterdam. My regular destinations – Barcelona, Malaga, Munich and Palma – don’t appear bookable at all. Is it worth waiting or should I just accept that I have to go to British Airways? Luton isn’t an option from this part of northeast Essex

Al U

A The demise of easyJet at Stansted is one of the many consequences in aviation of the dreadful coronavirus pandemic – and in particular the catastrophic effect Covid-19 has had on what was once the world’s most thriving aviation market, London.

Until a year ago, easyJet, Ryanair, British Airways and others competed ferociously with each other. But with the collapse in passenger numbers triggered by health concerns and government travel restrictions, all these excellent airlines have retrenched – including BA temporarily removing its short-haul services from Gatwick, and easyJet pulling out of Stansted.

While easyJet had a small presence at the Essex airport at the tail end of the 20th century, it was the purchase of Go – the British Airways low-cost brand – that conferred it with a busy network from Stansted. Until a year ago, the easyJet operation served a wide range of destinations, mainly on the old Go network – including niche destinations such as the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana.

The closure of Stansted was announced on 30 June last year, along with the easyJet bases at Southend and Newcastle. Johan Lundgren, the chief executive of easyJet, said at the time: “We are focused on doing what is right for the company and its long-term health and success so we can protect jobs going forward.”

I loosely translate that as: “Stansted has always been a bit of an outlier for us, only marginally profitable at the best of times. And with Ryanair being such tough competition we were never going to grow significantly there. So instead we are retrenching to Luton, our original hub, and Gatwick – now our biggest base.”

Talking of Ryanair: the airline will certainly fly from Stansted to Barcelona, Malaga, Munich and Palma if those routes look profitable – though possibly not Ljubljana, as that is well served from Luton by Wizz Air.

Finally, the Edinburgh and Amsterdam links you mention are flights that originate in other easyJet bases; serving Stansted is still regarded as a viable destination from the Scottish and Dutch capitals, but not as a hub in its own right.

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