The chief executive of Tourism Ireland has said that he does not underestimate the size of the challenge ahead for the tourism industry but is hopeful that international travel will resume in the third quarter of this year.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One programme, Niall Gibbons said the sector is facing "a very, very difficult picture moving forward" and that Ireland has lost connections with ten of 24 North American and Canadian gateways as a result of the pandemic.
These include places such as Miami, Atlanta and Vancouver, which he said "represents an enormous amount of decline". Mr Gibbons said there is "big" and pent-up demand among people to return to Ireland, and that there is a significant amount of pick-up by vaccinated Americans