THE DEPARTMENT of Health has confirmed that there are currently no hotels in Limerick or Shannon included in its contract for mandatory Covid quarantine.
This is fuelling concerns that when flights start returning to Shannon Airport, passengers may have to be transported to Dublin.
One hotel group currently has the contract to supply the quarantine facilities for those arriving from a list a countries but, so far, they have only opened one of four designated hotels in Dublin.
While passengers are not currently flying into Shannon from any of the designated countries, concerns have been raised about what will happen when air travel begins to reopen.
Neither Limerick, Shannon or Cork has any designated hotel contracted to provide quarantine facilities.
In a reply to the Limerick Post, a spokesman for the Department of Health said that the Tifco Hotel Group will be responsible for ensuring designated facilities are available for the provision of mandatory quarantine.
“The first four hotels designated for quarantine are the Crowne Plaza at Dublin Airport, the Holiday Inn at Dublin Airport, Clontarf Castle Hotel and the Hard Rock Hotel in Temple Bar.
“At present, the only mandatory quarantine hotel in use is the Crowne Plaza Dublin Airport. Other hotels will be opened for use as and when the demand exceeds the capacity of the Crowne Plaza,” the spokesman explained.
This week, the Government took a decision not to include several EU countries or the United States in the lists of countries where retuning or incoming visitors would have to quarantine.
If people are obliged to quarantine, they will have to pay their own hotel bills for the duration of their stay.
