Two Dublin women dubbed ‘the Dubai two’ are to stand trial for refusing to enter into Mandatory Hotel Quarantine in 2021 after returning to Ireland from the United Arab Emirates.
Casting our minds back to the circumstances of the case, Kirstie McGrath, 33, along with her friend Niamh Mulreany, 28, were arrested shortly after landing in Dublin Airport on the afternoon of April 2nd, 2021. Their arrest came about because, upon their return from Dubai, McGrath and Mulreany refused to enter one of the mandatory hotel quarantine facilities that had been recently enforced by the Irish government for those arriving from designated states, which at this stage included the UAE. The rule regarding the UAE had been enacted just two days before the pair travelled on holiday.
When the women, both young mothers, refused to enter the forced quarantine when they got home (which cost a not-so-modest €1875 per single adult), they were subsequently charged with breaching section 38 of the Health (Amendment) Act 2021. The law had been temporarily in force at the time. After being arrested and charged, spending a night in a prison cell, they were released on bail, and both women subsequently completed the mandatory hotel quarantine.
Despite their best efforts to stop the State from taking the case against them, the Supreme Court in Dublin recently dismissed their appeal – which had taken the form of a legal challenge against the constitutionality of the legislation in an attempt to halt the upcoming trial. Ruling against that appeal in September, Judge Ms Justice Aileen Donnelly set out examples of ‘lawful deprivation on freedom of movement’ otherwise than by judicial function, including cases of mental illness and infectious disease, to justify the government’s policy of mandatory quarantine.
And so the criminal proceedings against the duo, described as a “saga,” resumed at Dublin District Court this week. Some details have emerged. The women’s defence solicitor, Michael French, told the judge this week that his clients were pleading not guilty. The non-jury District Court trial will take place on February 10th next. But there are glaring questions to be asked about why on earth the State is taking such a ridiculous case, five years on from peak Covid madness. What does the State possibly hope to achieve through prosecution? Is it a scenario whereby the Irish State is simply in too deep? Does it desire to send a warning to others?
Regardless, I have an inkling that the criminal case may not go the way the State wants – and I sincerely hope, most of all, that this case serves to embarrass our government into accepting that the policy of Hotel Quarantine was an shambolic disaster which breached fundamental human rights, locking people up in hotels for days on end.
It was not about science or safety – it did not matter if you had a negative Covid test, or if you had been vaccinated, the rules still applied. It didn’t matter if you’d followed all the government advice up to that point, you still had to fork out the best part of two thousand euros for the privilege of being stuck in isolation in a lonely hotel room, eating prepared meals like in a hospital, while the staff and the corridors were covered in plastic ppe gear. The policy did not make us safer, and it made Ireland unpopular on the world stage, so why did the State persist with it, and why is the State so intent on defending it now? If it is to save face, although that ship sailed long ago.
We were the first country in Europe to introduce the Covid lunacy that was mandatory hotel quarantine. It was serious business. Let’s not forget the incredible sums of money made from the governmental restrictions.
The state gave a contract to the Tifco hotel group to run the mandatory quarantine system. The company had struck gold. It accommodated the arriving passengers in its Crowne Plaza hotels in Blanchardstown and Santry, the Holiday Inn Express in Santry, as well as the Hard Rock Hotel on Exchange Street in Dublin city.
A price list provided by the government remains on the internet as a reminder of the staggering cost – €1875.00 per single adult for the mandatory 12-night stay. Children couldn’t go free, with a €360 charge for kids aged four to 12, and €625 for children aged 13 to 17.
There was such a whiff of authoritarianism about the whole thing. The policy document produced by the government reminds travellers: “If you have not pre‐booked your place in quarantine, the charges set out in the regulations will be sought on arrival at the relevant designated facility. If you are unable to pay those charges on arrival, you may request an authorisation from the State Liaison Officer to defer payment and allow you to pay the charges at a later date. Again, the authorisation is a deferral of payment and not an automatic exemption from payment of charges.”
The state made it a criminal offence for an individual to leave mandatory quarantine without being authorised to do so, with the offender liable to be fined up to €2,000, be jailed for one month, or both.
This is as good a time as any to remind ourselves that our hotel quarantine rules were so unjust, rash and unpopular that they were the subject of international outrage, an unmitigated political and policy disaster for the Irish government called out by the EU and others. The policy did damage to our reputation internationally and roused up widespread protestation and anger.
The list of countries chosen to make the list was completely arbitrary and lacking in sense. The government had chosen, seemingly at random, to discriminate against some EU citizens whilst allowing others free passage.
Two travellers who had arrived from Israel, for example, were released prematurely from quarantine after they brought High Court actions against the Tifco Hotel Group and the State, successfully arguing that the measure was disproportionate (they had undergone Covid tests and were fully vaccinated).
Italy’s ambassador, in strikingly strong language for a diplomat, rightly called the policy out for being “selective and discriminatory.”
From beginning to end, our government’s enactment of hotel quarantine rules was a shambles. When first introduced, Ireland was an outlier – the only member state among 27 EU countries to go down the route of expensive hotel quarantine. At its height, 60 countries were on the list of designated states forced into hotel quarantine, including Italy, Belgium, France, and Austria.. The regime in place in April 2021 was so restrictive that the European Commission penned a letter to our government that very month urging Ireland to loosen the mandatory rules to allow exemptions for those on essential travel. EU Commission spokesperson, Christian Wigand, sounded the warning at the time. It was clear at this very early stage that Irish leaders had messed things up badly and made Ireland an outlier.
“The Commission has concerns regarding this measure in relation to the general principles of EU law, in particular, proportionality and non-discrimination,” the letter said.
The Commission said it believed “that the objective pursued by Ireland, which is the protection of public health during the pandemic, could be achieved with less restrictive measures in line with the council recommendations.” It also said that “clear and operational exemptions” for essential travel had to be ensured, giving Irish authorities ten days to respond to the letter.
Brussels had put its foot down. Yet, now ousted Health Minister Stephen Donnelly took to the RTE airwaves after the letter landed on his desk, declaring with lofty defiance that he was proud of the “biosecurity” arrangements that had been introduced on his watch.
He made no apologies, he said, to the Commission, nor to the Italian ambassador, “or anyone else for putting in place the measures” – insisting “we are now leading Europe by a country mile in terms of the biosecurity measures we have in place.”
“It’s something we should be very proud of, and it’s something the people want,” he added.
But the majority of people, if not then, surely now, see that the policy was nothing to be proud of. Our government had gone so rogue, so drunk on the thrill of authority and power in the name of ‘following the science’ that Poland and Hungry, Italy and the EU were raising concerns about the rule of law in Ireland.
Maybe most of all, the reason we should be ashamed of the policy and not proud of it, is the human level of distress it caused to some of those who were involved. There was the downright awful case of a 74-year-old grandmother who said she felt like “a prisoner” in a “surprise” hotel quarantine in Dublin after travelling from New Zealand – a country which had almost no cases of Covid at the time and was not on Ireland’s “high-risk” countries list.
An emotional Elizabeth Malcolm recounted her “distressing” experience of being told she would have to pay thousands to quarantine in Dublin because of a two and a half hour stopover in Dubai, where she never left the airport. “I feel in despair beyond all words now,” she said in a desperate appeal to the Irish authorities. How could we be proud of a law which was this cruel?
She said that she was brought instead to a hotel near Dublin airport, where members of the Defence Forces and security ensure that no-one is allowed to leave. Ms Malcolm had taken two PCR tests which tested negative for Covid tests before leaving New Zealand – and for another since arriving in Ireland.
“I feel like a prisoner, ” the grandmother of two teenage boys said. “Nothing about this makes any sense, especially when I followed all the rules and I’ve tested negative for Covid three times now. I’m being treated like a prisoner because of a last-minute change in policy that doesn’t even make any sense, and it’s so isolating.” Family were not allowed to visit at the hotel, with even window visits forbidden. The pensioner described the whole ordeal as upsetting.
And it was very much a case of one rule for me, another for thee, because you may remember that the French women’s rugby team were told they would not be subject to a hotel quarantine like the 74-year-old grandmother. Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said that “professional and elite” athletes would be excluded from the requirement when arriving in Dublin, due to an exemption.
Leinster rugby players were also exempt from quarantining when they returned from their Champions Cup trip to La Rochelle in May 2021.
The pointlessness of it all, looking back, is almost too outrageous for words. I say this because it emerged roughly six months after Mandatory Hotel Quarantine was introduced that just six per cent of those who were forced into hotels after landing here had actually tested positive for Covid. That data came directly from the department of health.
From March to October 2021, more than 10,000 people had been forced into quarantine designated hotels in Ireland for ten whole nights, despite the vast majority not having Covid at all. It all reads now like an incredibly bizarre soap opera – especially this segment from an old article, which reads: “Gardaí were supplied with the names and passport photos of 175 people who escaped from the quarantine hotels and they managed to locate 35 of them and return them to the hotels.”
Yet the tyrannical policy of mandatory hotel quarantine – or you won widespread political support in Ireland. Even Sinn Fein, the supposed opposition in government, supported the system. Mary Lou McDonald said a system of real mandatory quarantine for all non-essential arrivals from all countries was “needed” and it was “the only approach that will get the job done,” sending a message to people not to come to Ireland. Those politicians cannot turn around now, four years on, and say they were in favour of proportionality and freedom.
Mandatory Hotel Quarantine was a bizarre, authoritarian experiment which was a political and policy disaster from day one. One can only hope that the ‘Dubai two’ case humiliates the State into finally accepting that locking travellers up in hotels (who made a fortune from the move) was the height of sheer, power-drunk government incompetence.