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A painter detained by Gardaí at a Covid checkpoint said he did not mind the closure because he did not know anyone affected by the virus.
It was one of a series of examples cited by Gardaí when they said that, in general, people had been paying attention to the closure.
The painter was traveling to do a job in Co Meath when he was detained by officers at a checkpoint in Dublin.
The man said he would not abide by the restrictions of “an unelected government” and that he would continue to work.
A file had been sent to the Director of the Prosecutor’s Office, Gardaí said.
In another case, in the northwest, a driver nearly collided with a runner after trying to avoid a Covid-19 checkpoint.
“Two occupants, not from the same family, were very aggressive and argumentative from the beginning,” said Gardaí.
“The men said they were going to buy a part for a trailer. It was further established that it was a non-essential part.” Both said they would stop wherever they wanted. Gardaí has accused them of a crime.
Despite these examples, Gardaí said yesterday that the ‘rollback’ rate at checkpoints was 0.16pc on May 1 and that special regulations were invoked 139 times “for hundreds of thousands of interactions with the public.”
Pre-existing enforcement powers were used 1,172 times, depending on force, while there were 52 incidents of spitting or coughing at officers.
Accordance
“A Garda Síochána continues to experience a high level of compliance with public health guidelines at the numerous high-visibility checkpoints and patrols it conducts at tourist sites, natural sites, parks and beaches,” it said in a statement.
Compliance rate was sampled at four of the largest checkpoints on Friday, May 1, one in each Garda region.
Ireland’s Transportation Infrastructure technology was used to calculate the number of vehicles passing through checkpoints.
Twenty-one of the 13,324 checked car drivers, 0.16pc, were asked to turn around for not having a valid travel reason and all followed that directive.
“Details of these cars or drivers are not withheld under Garda policy to first encourage people to comply with efforts to support efforts to reduce the spread of Covid-19,” the force said.
The ban on non-essential travel has coincided with a period of unusually warm and sunny weather, according to Met Éireann.
The weather has been so hot and dry recently that drought has been reported in some areas.
Temperatures reached nearly 22 ° C in Co Mayo on April 29, with much of the country basking in the sun for weeks.
“The very dry climate, which started in the last third of March, with high prevailing pressure, continued throughout most of April,” Met Éireann said in his April summary released yesterday.
“This led to absolute droughts, partial droughts and drought conditions in many seasons between March 18 and April 29,” he added.
Irish independent
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