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Defense Forces officers will coordinate contacts between state departments and the private operator that manages the mandatory Covid-19 hotel quarantine system for the government.
The hotel’s mandatory quarantine for passengers arriving from 33 high-risk Covid countries will begin Tuesday after Health Minister Stephen Donnelly signed the initiation orders on Monday night.
Donnelly will outline the details of the new policy at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
It emerged on Monday that junior officers in the ranks between second lieutenant and captain are expected to oversee contacts at each hotel and at Dublin and Cork airports, Dublin Port and Europort Rosslare.
Hotel managers and staff, along with private security contractors and transport operators between airports or ports and quarantined hotels, may raise any concerns with Defense Forces staff who will act as liaison officer for the State with private hotel operators.
The expectation is that the quarantine system will require a staff of approximately 100 Defense Forces personnel with between 30 and 40 on duty at any time under 24-hour supervision.
The Defense Forces will be tasked with playing a quality assurance role for the operation.
State officials are concerned about the sensitivity around the role that military personnel should play and the perception of an army coordinating a mandatory quarantine system that protects the public from Covid-19 but infringes on people’s civil liberties.
“This is a delicate piece. This is not martial law. It is not internment. It is not Myanmar, ”said a source, referring to the Asian country where the military seized power in a coup last month.
The separation of people arriving in the State will be carried out “in the area of operations” of the airports where people from the 33 high-risk countries or those who arrive without a negative Covid-19 PCR test will be received by the staff and accompanied to the buses for their transfer to their mandatory destination. quarantine facilities.
Passengers arriving in the State from these countries must undergo a mandatory two-week quarantine in a hotel at a cost to them of approximately € 2,000.
The new mandatory quarantine laws will act as a strong deterrent against travel to Ireland from high infection areas, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said on Monday.
He said he anticipated the system would use the reserved capacity (2,500 hotel rooms), particularly as more countries were added to the list of which those traveling would have to quarantine.
The list of 33 “category 2” countries now includes only one EU state, Austria. However, a large number of cases in EU states such as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Malta could see them added.
Mr Martin said that mandatory quarantine would be stronger when the number of cases was very low in Ireland, and would help ensure that they did not increase dramatically again.
He said community broadcasting was the key issue right now.
The contract for the reception of quarantined passengers has been awarded to the Tifco Hotel group, which operates 24 hotels in the state, including Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn Express near Dublin airport, Hilton Hotel in Kilmainham, Travel Lodge Hotels near airports, as well like Clontarf. Castle.
“The mandatory quarantine will act as a deterrent for people entering Ireland,” Martin said, although he predicted “significant demand” for rooms.
While he anticipated that the list of countries would be added, he rejected the mandatory quarantine for incoming passengers from all countries, as argued by some members of the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet).
He said the legislation required good public health reasons for countries to be added to the list, and that there would be no legal basis for applying the rule to all countries. He said it would not make sense and Nphet as a whole was clear on the subject “and agreed to a balanced approach.”
The Taoiseach, speaking on RTÉ Radio’s News at One, said that the operator of the scheme would be responsible for providing (private) security and that Garda Síochána would have no role in policing the hotels.
“This is not a prison. We live in a liberal democracy. There are balances to be struck here, ”he said.
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