LEGISLATION WHICH ALLOWS for the renewal of mandatory hotel quarantine in Ireland has been signed into law by the President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins.

The law, which was passed by the Houses of the Oireachtas last week, allows for the re-introduction of mandatory quarantine for people coming into the State from certain areas which are deemed to have sustained human transmission of Covid-19 or any variant of concern of the virus.

Travellers who arrive in Ireland who have also been in named countries can now be made to stay in a hotel for 14 days, based on orders from the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly, who has the power to designate such countries. 

Those who fail to comply with the requirement can be arrested. 

The move is part of tighter restrictions aimed at trying to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant.

The Health (Amendment) (No. 3) Bill 2021 allowed for the reintroduction of mandatory quarantine on a temporary basis.

The legislation can also be used to quarantine people coming into the country in certain circumstances where they fail to comply with requirements for Covid-19 testing. 

Introducing the bill in the Dáil last week, Donnelly said that “unfortunately, the threat of the emergence of variants of disease has not gone away”.

“The coronavirus has served up something none of us wanted to see,” Donnelly said.

With the emergence of the variant and uncertainties about its strength and transmissibility, “hotel quarantine may be necessary for a limited time in the interest of protection of public health and to control transmission”, he told the Dáil.

He said travel measures like mandatory hotel quarantine “give us time to further increase vaccination rates, including the boosters, and time to deploy some very promising new antiviral drugs that are in the pipeline”.

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said yesterday that early evidence indicates that while the new variant is more transmissible, the illness associated with it is mild. 

Sinn Féin, the Labour Party and the Social Democrats supported the mandatory hotel quarantine bill.

The hotel quarantine system was scaled down in September as the designation of a large number of States was revoked. 

A total of 10,294 people entered the mandatory quarantine system during its operation. Eight hotels were used to facilitate the system and 593 residents tested positive for Covid-19 during their quarantine period.

Concerns raised 

In April of this year, the EU Commission raised concerns with the Irish government over the introduction of mandatory hotel quarantine. 

The Commission wrote to the Irish Government over its concerns about how the measure impacted on EU law.

A video message from spokesperson Christian Wigand suggested that Ireland could protect its citizens from the impact of Covid-19 by using other measures.

“The Commission believes that the objective pursued by Ireland, which is the protection of public health during the pandemic, could be achieved by less restrictive measures,” Wigand said.

However, the Department of Justice maintained that the measure was legally sound. 

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has previously said there are serious human rights difficulties with the mandatory hotel quarantine system.

During a debate on further emergency powers legislation last night, a number of politicians criticised the government for not carrying out the “most basic human rights assessments” or “some level of democratic oversight” on Covid-19 legislation.

Opposition members said they were not prepared to sign off on giving “wide ranging powers” to the health minister.