Issue is lack of awareness on just how well the Irish people suppressed community infection.

New cases, since June 1st:

UK: 25,483
Sweden: 18,289
Portugal: 5,764
Romania: 4,002
Belgium: 1,959
Bulgaria: 1,236
Czechia: 1,120
Denmark: 692
Austria: 538
Switzerland: 346
Ireland: 306 https://twitter.com/GarethOCal/status/1274084985285292033

We've one of the most suppressed epidemic's in Europe right now, which isn't easy to achieve, as we see from the level of infection elsewhere in Europe.

Relaxing and foreshortening measures in response to low infection is not only reasonable, it's fundamentally necessary.

Denmark today brought forward (by 2 months) travel restrictions, allowing people to visit Denmark June 27th, from everywhere in Europe bar Sweden and Portugal.

Denmark have double the amount of new cases per capita than Ireland in June, too. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-denmark-borders/denmark-will-reopen-to-most-european-nations-except-portugal-much-of-sweden-idUSKBN23P1OD

The Irish testing program, as currently constituted, is one of the best in the world.

The average turnaround time of 1.2 days and average contact tracing time of 2.4 days, easily stacks up well against Denmark, who are widely considered the best-in-class.

I understand people don't want spikes and 2nd waves - neither of which are inevitable - but if you can't open up a country when the virus is smashed, when can you open it up?

Countries with far higher R0's are weeks ahead of us on reopenings, so it's logical to bring it forward.

Key is for people to continue doing the things that successfully suppressed it in first place - good hand hygiene and giving each other a bit of distance when out.

(Genuinely no idea what part of this plan you think is "PR" - they're basing it on infection levels in community)