The CEO of Ryanair has said Nphet should stop issuing daily Covid “scare stories” and release daily vaccination figures instead.
Speaking on RTÉ radios Morning Ireland he said: Part of this is the Nphet daily press conference trying to terrify the population. 
The reality is that the UK will have vaccinated 50% of their population, everybody over 50 by the end of March. Ireland needs to catch up, hopefully by the end of June.
Nphet and the Chief Medical Officer, if he was doing his job properly, should be holding a daily press conference announcing the number of people who’ve been vaccinated not issuing scare stories about the numbers of people in hospitals. He’s the Chief Medical Officer and he should be dealing with the vaccine.
Vaccination is the way out of this Covid crisis, not these failed lockdowns. 
Ryanair boss Michael OLeary has said that the airline will not be asking passengers for proof that they have been vaccinated.
Mr OLeary said: We’ll be asking the Government and Nphet to get the finger out and accelerate the vaccine programme in this country and to vaccinate the high-risk groups which is the only way we’re going to come out of Covid-19. Not more failed lockdowns. 
The Ryanair CEO said he expected a dramatic recovery in the aviation industry this summer on the back of the successful vaccination roll out programme in the UK.
50% of their population will be vaccinated by the end of March. Europe and Ireland needs to get its act together and catch up – if 50% of our population is vaccinated by the end of June which is what we now expect, we see a strong recovery of travel, in summer holidays through the school holidays into August and September. 
The vast majority of people who were sick and dying from Covid were in the over-65 age group, he said. There are not lots of young people getting sick.
Mr OLeary said that if everyone over the age of 50 was vaccinated by the end of June then there would be no requirement for restrictions.
The vast majority of young people don’t get sick with Covid. they are asymptomatic, there will be a dramatic reduction in hospitalisations, a dramatic reduction in deaths thankfully and there’ll be a dramatic reduction in the Covid hype on RTÉ once everybody over 50 is vaccinated. That should take place before the end of June.
If Europe and Ireland get its act together, catches up with the UK vaccination programme, we should be out of these lockdowns by the end of June and RTÉ will have to move on and talk about something else. 
Mr OLeary denied that the tone of the airlines Jab and Go advert was wrong, no it was absolutely correct, it was factually correct saying that vaccines are coming, book now for Easter and summer – we fully accept that Easter will be a write-off.
Now because of the vaccine programme summer 2021, we will see millions of people travelling to the beaches of Europe in July, August and September when everybody over 50 will have been vaccinated and the risk of sickness, hospitalisation and death from Covid will have significantly receded.
We need some optimism in Ireland, not the daily doses of pessimism being delivered by Nphet and RTÉ. 
“What we need is to look forward to a post-vaccination date which should be in the second quarter of this year when Ireland begins to roll out vaccinations. 
“Nphet would do a much better job if it actually focused on vaccinations and we had a daily announcement from Nphet on the number of people who are vaccinated and what the programme is to vaccinate all the high-risk groups over 65 who account for 93% of the deaths in January.
If we dealt with the issue instead of just pandering to the misinformation coming from Nphet you’d get a lot further. 
On the issue of delays with refunds for cancelled flights, Mr OLeary was adamant that every customer who had requested a refund had received it: Every customer who has requested a refund has received it. There are some with vouchers who have the option of a cash refund if they want it they will receive it within five days. There is no backlog in refunds – all have now been issued. 
The airline expects a very strong recovery in Dublin and Shannon airports, but not in Cork.
We dont think there will be a recovery in Cork. It will be delayed because there’s a very high cost of operations in Cork – there will not be a rapid recovery at airports where there will be price increases, we need much lower costs, lower access costs if we’re to restore Irish tourism.
Irish tourism is not going to survive on a bunch of staycations, we need to welcome back European visitors. 
We also need to get away from the mass hysteria created by Nphet last week on international travel when the four counties with the highest rate are border counties – most of the international travel that Nphet worries about is coming across the border. It isnt coming on non-existent flights into Dublin.