New EU traffic light system comes into effect tonight

A local travel agent is slamming the new travel system coming into effect tonight.

From midnight (Sunday), Ireland’s colour coded risk categorisation now refers to EU regions, rather than individual countries.

Passengers arriving from red zones must quarantine the full 14 days, while those from orange areas don’t have to if they test negative for the virus three days before travel — and there’s no restriction from green zones.

But Des Manning, from Manning Travel, says the issue is that no countries meet the criteria for the green zone. ”You have no countries meeting those criteria’s, which is 25 cases per 100,000 and no country is even getting near those numbers right now.”