Dear friends, a chairde,

I hope you are all keeping safe and well in these challenging times.

As you may have seen from our social media over the past few weeks, we have actively been encouraging Irish citizens in Canada who are here on short-term visas, and who wish to return to Ireland, to make arrangements to do so as soon as possible.

Many of our young people have already lost their employment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and our wish is to try and avoid our Irish citizens in Canada being left in a precarious living situation as a result of the COVID-19 situation.

Today, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Simon Coveney shared the following message to Irish citizens in Canada:

Advice to Irish Citizens on short term visas in Canada

“I urge Irish citizens in Canada on short term visas, who are thinking about coming home, to make arrangements to leave as soon as possible. While many of you have benefitted from Canada’s generous working holiday visa scheme, we are now living in uncertain times. Flight connections are limited and narrowing, and you should seize the opportunity now to return to Ireland in the coming days.

Our Embassy in Ottawa and our Consulate General in Vancouver stand ready to provide advice and guidance”

We have posted this message on the Embassy’s Twitter (@irlembcanada) and on the Embassy’s Instagram (@irelandincanada), as well as a further message about narrowing flight options between Canada and Ireland, but we need your help to get these messages out to our community.

Please re-share our posts on Twitter and Instagram, and if your organisations have Facebook pages, we ask you to share these messages there too. We have attached the Twitter Card and the Instagram-sized image of the Tánaiste’s message to this email, as well as the Twitter card we shared about flight options. The Twitter cards can also be shared to Facebook as photos.

It has been wonderful to see how the Irish community in Canada has pulled together over the past month, and we aim to speak directly with as many organisations as we can in the coming days and weeks to discuss the needs of the Irish community in your area. Thank you for your support for our efforts, and for everything that you are doing to help your community.

Take care of yourselves and each other. Stay safe.

Le gach dea ghuí,

Jim Kelly

Ambassador of Ireland