Taoiseach: Social media check is ‘unworkable’ for US travel

New plans by the Trump administration that would mean all tourists to the United States would have to reveal their social media activity from the last five years have been called “unworkable” by Taoiseach Micheál Martin.

The proposed regulations come as travel from Ireland to the US has already fallen since Donald Trump came into office for the second time in November of last year, down 8% compared to a year ago and 19% compared to two years ago.

The proposal was published last week in a Federal Register notice. Travellers would also have to submit other “high-value data fields” including phone numbers from the last five years, email addresses from the past decade and personal details of their family members.

The new rules would apply to people of all countries, regardless of whether they require visas or not.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin told media at an event to celebrate the launch of work in Cork’s Crawford Gallery that the proposal would hinder tourism: “I think it’s not workable.

“We will consult and we will engage, but five years of social media for some people is a lot of social media, I pity the person who has to look through it all.” He added: “I think president Trump is a sensible guy, doesn’t believe in over-bureaucratising things.

“This would hinder travel in a big way, and I think there’s very good, historic connections between Ireland and the United States and it’s an important link. We wouldn’t like to see anything that would hinder travel between the countries for the people of both countries.”

It comes as travel by Irish people to the US is already down, according to latest Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures.

There were 163,000 trips to the US and Canada by Irish residents in the third quarter of this year, down from 177,000 during the same period in 2024 and 202,000 in 2023, a decrease of almost a fifth in two years.

A reduction in tourism to the US is not exclusive to Ireland, as data recently released by the National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) shows that in September 2025, total non-US resident international visitor volume to the United States of decreased 11% compared to September 2024.