Alliance MLA: The rules about going on holiday are as clear as mud

Alliance MLA Kellie Armstrong has described the current rules around foreign holidays as “clear as mud”.
By The Newsroom
Published 21st Jul 2020, 21:37 GMT
Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 31st January 2017 - Strangford candidate Kellie Armstrong pictured at the campaign launch for the Alliance Assembly Election campaign at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Belfast. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 31st January 2017 - Strangford candidate Kellie Armstrong pictured at the campaign launch for the Alliance Assembly Election campaign at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Belfast. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.
Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 31st January 2017 - Strangford candidate Kellie Armstrong pictured at the campaign launch for the Alliance Assembly Election campaign at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Belfast. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

She suggested the Northern Ireland Executive could take a decision to clarify the rules when it meets tomorrow.

Ms Armstrong, speaking to the Nolan Show on BBC Radio Ulster this morning after her party colleague Paula Bradshaw cancelled a planned trip to Italy, said: “It’s clear as mud. It comes from the fact that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office say anyone can go and come back with these ‘air bridges’ as they call them.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“That’s what’s causing confusion because here in Northern Ireland we are different in saying only travel if it’s essential – so that knocks on the head the foreign travel stuff.

“It doesn’t matter if you go away and come back and you don’t have to quarantine. It is ‘don’t travel’.”

She continued: “I have had phone calls through from families who are at their wit’s end about this – people who booked holidays maybe this time last year – and the holiday companies aren’t cancelling.

“So this is where it comes down to the nitty gritty because the holiday company are waiting to see if the guidelines are going to change.

“Planes are taking off with folk on them and not on them.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“People are spending a fortune on a holiday that they had hoped to go on and some are saying they’re not going to risk it.

“We just need clarity. I’m hoping the Executive are going to say on Thursday ‘see this stuff, we need to make it clear – they can either go or they can’t and that’s it’.”

The Strangford MLA added: “If it just said ‘you can’t go’, that would be easier.

“There are other people, other than holidaymakers, that travel.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“You know what, it’s not just airplanes. Are we going to say to lorry drivers ‘because you’ve come into this country you’re now going to have to quarantine for 14 days?’.

“They’ve been doing it the whole way through lockdown because it’s an essential service. It’s not to say let’s put a steel ring around Northern Ireland and saying nobody’s allowed to move.

“We need to be careful, we need to plan.”

Related topics:Northern Ireland ExecutivePeopleNorthern Ireland