Oran Doyle, Trinity College Dublin
Introduction
Considerable public controversy has attended the revelation of the Oireachtas Golf Society event held in Clifden last week. Questions have arisen over whether individuals involved broke the law or public health guidelines. In this blogpost, I outline the most relevant legal obligations under three headings: the holding of events, arriving from a foreign country, travelling to and from locked down counties. This is not intended as an assessment of whether specified individuals have broken the law. Not all facts are known and such an assessment should only, if at all, be made by a court following due process. Nor do I mean to suggest that the expectations of public officials should be limited to strict compliance with the law. Nevertheless, compliance with legal obligations is particularly important; this analysis may assist public debate in that regard.
Holding events
SI 206/2020 Health Act 1947 (Section 31A – Temporary Restrictions) (COVID-19) (No.3) Regulations 2020 has applied since 29 June 2020. Regulation 5 makes it a criminal offence to organise or cause to be organised, an indoor event for cultural, entertainment, recreational, sporting, social, community or educational purposes unless the maximum number of persons attending, or proposed to attend, the event does not exceed 50 persons. The organiser is not criminally liable if she took all reasonable steps to ensure that the number attending did not exceed 50. Section 31A(16) of the Health Act 1947 defines event as ‘a gathering of persons, whether the gathering is for cultural, entertainment, recreational, sporting, commercial, work, social, community, educational, religious or other reasons…’
Regulation 5 applies to people who organise events or cause them to be organised. If I were to organise an academic conference, for instance, I would potentially be open to criminal liability if the conference were held inside and more than 50 people attended, even if they distributed themselves between parallel sessions. Anybody who helped me to organise the conference might also be criminally liable, either under Regulation 5 itself or as an accessory. But it is not—at the time of writing—a criminal offence to attend an event.
Arriving from abroad
I have already covered on this blog the limited legal obligations that apply to those who arrive from abroad. The only legal obligations on international passengers arriving from non-green list countries are to provide, confirm, and update information about where they will be or are residing for 14 days after arrival. There is no legal obligation to restrict movements. If they change their place of residence or contact details, they must make reasonable efforts to provide this updated information in writing. Failure to do so is a criminal offence. *The passenger locator form informs international arrivals that if any information provided in the form changes in the next 14 days they are required to send an email with their complete and update information to passengerlocatorform@plf.ie.
Travelling to and from locked down counties
Regulation 4 of SI 295/2020 Health Act 1947 (Section 31A – Temporary Restrictions) (COVID-19) (Relevant Counties) Regulations 2020 applied a number of restrictions to the counties of Laois, Offaly, and Kildare between 8 and 23 August. SI 315/2020 subsequently disapplied the Regulations to Laois and Offaly but extended the Regulations until 7 September in respect of Kildare.
Regulation 4 prohibits people travelling to or from an affected county—other than to pass through without stopping—without a reasonable excuse. Regulation 4 provides a non-exhaustive list of reasonable excuses, which includes travelling in order to ‘work, comply with a contract of employment or contract for services, or otherwise engage in work or employment.’ As we have discussed before in this blog in a similar context, it is difficult to gauge what other reasons might qualify as ‘reasonable excuses’. On the one hand, it is arguable that something close to a listed excuse should, by analogy, also be a reasonable excuse. On the other hand, it is arguable that the purpose of the provision is to stipulate somewhat arbitrary limits on movement that allow people to coordinate in a collective effort; if that is correct, it would not be a reasonable excuse to travel for the purpose of something that is very similar to yet different from one of the listed reasonable excuses.
Regulation 4 is not deemed to be a penal provision, meaning that breach of Regulation 4 is not a criminal offence and that the gardaí do not have any legal power to direct compliance with the terms of Regulation 4.
*Amended 1 September 2020 to include reference to this provision in the passenger locator form as the means of updating the passenger's details.
Oran Doyle is professor in law in Trinity College Dublin and director of the COVID-19 Law and Human Rights Observatory.
Suggested citation: Oran Doyle, ‘On Legal Obligations and Golf-Gate’ COVID-19 Law and Human Rights Observatory (28 August 2020) available at
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