Ireland cuts travel 'Green List' down to four countries

Ireland on Thursday removed Germany, Poland and Lithuania from its travel "green list", leaving just four countries exempt from a 14-day quarantine for arriving passengers.

Ireland, which has some of the tightest travel restrictions in Europe, is only allowing quarantine-free travel from countries with a Covid-19 infection rate of under 25 cases per 100,000 people over the past 14 days.

As a result, travellers arriving from all countries other than Cyprus, Finland, Latvia and Liechtenstein must go into quarantine for 14 days from Monday next week, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Three of those countries have restrictions on travellers from Ireland, which currently has a Covid-19 infection rate of 71 cases per 100,000 people, according to the European Centre for Disease Control.

The Irish government has said it will adopt a more liberal system of coordinated travel restrictions proposed by the European Commission once they are adopted in mid-October.