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Two women arrested after allegedly refusing to enter the hotel’s mandatory quarantine upon arrival at Dublin airport appeared before the Tallaght District Court on Saturday afternoon.
The women have been accused of resisting being detained and taken to a quarantine facility under the Health (Amendment) Act 2021, the legislative basis for the mandatory quarantine regime for people coming from certain designated locations.
In both cases, the judge established bail conditions that included a personal bail of € 800 and a separate bail of € 2,000, with each woman showing up and residing in a designated quarantine hotel when taking the bail.
Women, as part of the bail conditions, must reside in hotels for 14 days, unless they test negative for Covid-19 after 10 days.
The court heard that the women had come from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and had been abroad to undergo cosmetic surgery procedures.
Kirstie McGrath (30) of St Anthony’s Road, Dublin 8, and Niamh Mulreany (25), of Scarlet Row, Essex Street West, Dublin 2, appeared sequentially before Judge Miriam Walsh, who assigned similar bail terms in each case.
When attorney Michael French, for Ms. Mulreany, said that his client had been abroad for “breast enhancement or modification,” Judge Walsh said, “colloquially referred to as a breast operation.”
Requests for bail on behalf of the two women were made by Mr. French and answered by Inspector Luke Lacey, from Dublin Airport Garda Station.
Inspector Lacey said that despite numerous attempts by gardaí at Dublin airport on Friday to explain to women the nature of the quarantine legislation and the consequences of not complying, they had refused to do so. His decisions not to comply were made consciously, he said.
Mr. French told the court that Ms. McGrath had two young children and Ms. Mulreany had one child, and that in both cases the women were the sole caretakers of their children. They both lived off the allowance of single parents.
His client would be willing to be quarantined at home, he told the judge when Ms. McGrath’s case was before the court.
He said that when the matter reached the hearing, his clients would be challenging the constitutionality of the quarantine legislation.
It was, she said during Ms. Mulreany’s hearing, disproportionate “to take away a woman’s freedom for coming to the State and refusing to book a hotel … There is going to be a girl without her mother.” What was happening was “grossly unfair.”
Inspector Lacey said he was in court because of the seriousness with which the state takes cases to court, and the “extraordinary times” they lived through.
“The purpose of the legislation is to detain people in quarantine to prevent the spread of the disease.”
During Ms McGrath’s hearing, Inspector Lacey said it was important that the integrity of the quarantine legislation be maintained.
If Ms. McGrath were released on bail unconditionally, it would be a “mockery” of the legislation. The State faced a dangerous situation with new variants of the coronavirus.
During Mulreany’s hearing, French said his client had had three Covid19 tests over the past week, the first before his Emirates airline flight from Dublin.
He did a second test before attempting to board a flight on Wednesday from the United Arab Emirates, but was unable to board the flight because he “simply did not have” the € 2,500 required to pay in advance for being quarantined when arriving in Dublin.
Mr. French said the flights for his cosmetic surgery were “reserved as a gift” for his client.
When Mr. French said that it would be difficult for his client to meet the conditions of the bond and that she was a woman of “limited resources”, Judge Walsh said that it was “a woman who traveled to the United Arab Emirates to submit to cosmetic procedures “.
Inspector Lacey questioned the granting of legal aid during the first hearing, given Ms. McGrath’s trip abroad to undergo plastic surgery.
However, in both cases the judge granted legal assistance. French said his clients would have a difficult time meeting bail conditions on a Saturday afternoon.
After conviction, the crime for which the women are charged carries a fine of up to 2,000 euros or a month in jail.
The two cases were postponed until April 9 at 10:30 a.m.
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