Liam Herrick

Travellers arriving in Ireland from designated states are required by law to pre-book accommodation in a designated quarantine facility, and to pre-pay for their stay.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly described the hotel quarantine system in February as “the most restrictive and the most comprehensive in Europe”, rejecting calls for it to be extended even further to all travellers and not just those from designated states.

He emphasised at the time that there had been “a lot of back and forth” with the Office of the Attorney General to ensure the legislation is “legally robust”.

However, in a new legal briefing, ICCL said the scheme in its current form fails to meet Ireland’s “strong constitutional protections for individual liberty”.

Liam Herrick, ICCL executive director, said: “The Irish Constitution and numerous international treaties contain a number of safeguards against arbitrary detention, including requirements of necessity and proportionality, and the requirement for a robust appeal process. Unfortunately, the reports on hotel quarantine so far shows that these standards are not being met.”

The civil liberties group said the Constitution requires that the State employ detention as a very last resort and it was not clear that the government had fully exhausted all other options of disease control before reaching for mandatory hotel quarantine, including supervised home quarantine and testing systems.

It went on to flag difficulties with the lack of clear and consistent criteria and decisions on designated states; the inadequate provision for consideration of individual circumstances and hardship cases; the insufficient appeals process; and the lengthy stay required in quarantine, when it says international public health advice suggests five to seven days should be sufficient.

It also expressed alarm at reports of poor conditions in the hotels, engaging issues in relation to private and family life.