Ireland removes Italy, Austria from hotel quarantine list

DUBLIN, May 8 (Reuters) - Ireland removed Italy and Austria
from its list of countries where arrivals are subject to
mandatory hotel quarantine but kept the measures in place for
three other European Union member states despite misgivings from
the EU executive.

Ireland has some of the toughest travel restrictions in the
Europe and is the only one the EU's 27 countries that forces
arrivals from certain countries to pay almost 2,000 euros each
to quarantine for up to 14 days in a secure hotel.

The European Commission last month urged Dublin to pursue
less restrictive measures and sought clarifications as to why
some fellow member states were subject to the rules and others
were not. Belgium, France and Luxembourg remain on the list.

Arrivals from Armenia, Aruba, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Curaçao, Jordan, Kosovo, Lebanon, North Macedonia and Ukraine
will also no longer have to quarantine in a hotel, Irish Health
Minister Stephen Donnelly said in a statement.

The Irish government has said it hopes to ease the
restrictions once the EU rolls out digital health passes that
will permit vaccinated citizens to travel.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Christina Fincher)