“No Apologies”

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From top: Dublin Airport yesterday: Stephen Donnelly on RTE One’s Prime Time last night

Last night

Following European Commission pressure, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said regulations to allow fully vaccinated people arriving to Ireland quarantine at home will be drafted and signed in the coming days…

Via Irish Times:

European Union embassies had earlier renewed their criticism of the quarantine system. They were joined by the European Commission, which contacted Irish authorities seeking clarifications on the criteria used to designate countries and raising “some concerns in relation to the general principles of EU law, in particular proportionality and non-discrimination”.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly, speaking on RTÉ’s Prime Time programme last night, said he would “make no apologies” to the European Commission or Italian ambassador to Ireland for introducing mandatory hotel quarantine and that he is “confident” the move is in compliance with EU law.

Hmm.

Covid-19: Vaccinated people to be exempt from hotel quarantine, Donnelly says (Irish Times)

Meanwhile…

Good times.

Last night: Back In The Old Country

Meanwhile…

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48 thoughts on ““No Apologies”

  1. Broadbag

    What’s in a house that’s so vital to the new born that isn’t available in a hotel room? Heard them earlier in the week on the radio waffling on about not being able to get ‘supplies’ in the hotel, as if they can’t bring them from Ukraine, order online or have some dropped off by family members. What this boils down to is they just don’t want the inconvenience, which is totally understandable, but why are they getting so much air time, it’s just bad timing.

    Edit: It’s low hanging fruit but has to be said, we’ve allowed this to happen in Direct Provision for years, the babies are there for years too, not just 12 days and yet now the media jump on this bandwagon because it’s handy clickbait.

    1. E'Matty

      It’s a disproportionate infringment on their Constitutional rights. The lower intellect class (i.e. people such as yourself) do not really understand Constitutional or EU law matters. You appear to believe the government has a blank cheque to do as it pleases to prevent spread of the virus. Such ignorance. A baby, who is at almost no risk from the virus themselves, and who the government and NPHET have repeatedly told us for months are not a risk of transmission (the same holds for all under 16), is now having their liberty denied. It’s an easy case for any legal team to win. Once the baby is “freed” from detention, the rights of parents (and protection of family life under the Constitution) then become a serious issue for the court to consider in the context of the proportionality of the measures.

      The State has already conceded that MHQ is forced detention. Therefore, it forms an infringement upon the Constitutionally protected right to liberty and must be proportionate. They have already conceded that it is disproportionate for someone who has clear PCR tests and has been vaccinated, which is why they failed to fight a single one of the recent High Court challenges.

      This new move to exempt the unvaccinated from MHQ now opens them up to futher litigation from those unvaccinated but with clear PCR tests. The State would have to show that their infringement on the Constitutionally protected right to liberty is proportionate to the risk and that such discrimination between vaccinated and unvaccinated people is not arbitrary and is based on a sound evidential basis. The government have already shot themselves in the foot on this by earlier in the week defending MHQ for the vaccinated by clearly stating that the vaccinated still pose a risk of transmission, thereby completely undercutting their argument in favour of this exemption and the distinction between the vaccinated and unvaccinated. This will also come into play for vaccine certs and passports.

      I would highly recommend to every person in MHQ who has clear PCR tests to contact their solicitor immediately and commence an action against the State. They’ll be out of MHQ before they know it and the whole system will collapse (which it is doing in slow motion before our eyes already, the EU Commission complaints yesterday being just another nail in the coffin). The Law is a thing of beauty when it’s functioning properly. It is to date the most effective bulwark we have against this authoritarian regime.

      1. Broadbag

        ”The lower intellect class (i.e. people such as yourself)”

        Wow, this comment tells me all I need to know about you and indeed your own intellectual insecurities, bravo!

        1. E'Matty

          intellectual superiority. The problem is actually that I do not suffer the intellectual inferiority complex your kind are afflicted by. You believe you need an expert to tell you what to think on a particular subject, as if you couldn’t possibly figure it out for yourself. That’s your inferiority complex. Sometimes it’s necessary to call a spade a spade. If you’re ignorant and poorly educated, I feel it is incumbent on me to state this when addressing your dribblings. Whilst I will happily insult, I will also provide an argument with sound reasoning. You are incapable of anything beyond “na na na na nana” type arguments, which of course, is all I would expect from someone of your calibre.

          1. Broadbag

            Not sufficiently educated to start a sentence with a capital letter though, how embarrassing! Storming in with an unprovoked ad hominem is the preserve of the insecure and your second post confirms it with yet more ugly ramblings.

    2. V AKA Frilly Keane

      In fairness

      Mammy and Daddy were probably years waiting and wanting to bring a baby home

      And that’s a desperation that everyone should be sympathetic to

      No matter what ye have to say about MHQ or Lockdown
      Or anything else that Covid triggers

      1. Micko

        Totally.

        Also the pressure on new parents is intense enough without having to spend it in quarantine.

        My wife was unbelievably thankful to have her mum and sisters around to help when she had our little one.

        We didn’t know what we were doing.

    3. Clampers Outside

      If the couples’ families are from outside Dublin… how do they deliver?

      Just ssshhhhtop will you.

      1. Janet, chatty mammy

        I have no one near me, I can’t even imagine not being in my own space at least where I had everything organized, pretty heartless

        1. Micko

          Yup.

          I can only imagine that stress is magnified by the fact that they are trying to bond with a child the mother didn’t carry. Maybe not – I dunno.

          Surely an exemption could be made for these guys.

          1. Janet, chatty mammy

            wish them the best, I’m sure they just want to give baby best start, a hotel room isn’t it

          2. Daisy Chainsaw

            I wish homeless families with newborns, forced to live in hotel rooms for years, were all given this kind of consideration.

  2. Charger Salmons

    I like Shatter.
    He’s from that era when politicians such as him and Michael McDowell posessed intellect and common sense – both rare commodities these days.
    I like McDowell too not least because he donates his annual government pension of €60,00 to charity.
    And he articulates opinions cogently and intelligently.
    Of course Shatter was treated poorly because he’s Jewish.

    1. Johnny

      ….your new here.

      McDowell hobbled Frank Connolly investigating Ray Burke’s awarding Shell state assets,Corrrib gas fields.

      He violated his oath of office and is disgraced.

    2. Papi

      This is quite honestly the best conversation between two fuppin eejits I’ve ever seen on here.
      It’s like drunk swans fighting.

      Have at it boys!

    1. Broadbag

      Exactly, everyone’s a special little snowflake now and think an exception should be made for them because rules are only for the proles.

  3. GiggidyGoo

    ” the general principles of EU law”
    And there’s the nub of the matter. Donnelly, Varadkar, Harris, Martin and Co. are making it up as they go along, and ignore EU law.

    1. U N M U T U A L

      I see the Mini-Stir Maestro Stephen is back again,
      Utilising the ever popular governmental ‘Magic 8 Ball strategy’… don’t worry, give him another shake and we’ll see what he comes up with tomorrow…

  4. Hector Rameriz

    No wonder Europe is being hit repeatedly by waves of Covid. Try introduce measures to limit numbers and the commission says it’s against EU law. We don’t see these waves in countries that did introduce quarantine. Even Australia kept it through all the complaints by professional tennis players.

    Saw a tweet from some chap dowling last night, asking what do the Soc Dems and SF want… no matter what regulations are introduced (that said parties scream for) they come on complaining. Of course the Social media armies of those parties screamed blue murder.

  5. Micko

    A pal of mine lives in Belgium.

    He has a holiday home here. At the mo he’s trying to figure out what’s the easiest and cheapest way to get in.

    Fly to Belfast and just blag his way down with his Irish passport if stopped? Or go to Holland first and fly from there as they aren’t on the designated list (yet)

    I’ll let ye all know how he gets on ;)

    1. Mr. T

      Belfast 100%
      AFAIK even if your country isnt on “the list” you have to quarantine for a couple of days at least to come into Ireland

      1. Micko

        More than Sweden?

        Remind me – which one locked down again… eh eh eh?

        .
        .

        Balls, I’m breaking my own “don’t compare countries” rule

        Damn you Cian!!!! Look what you’ve made me do!!! *shakes fist* ;)

      1. Booger

        Really? Locking up people for no reason isn’t fascist?

        Get over yourself.

        At every opportunity you promote a fascist agenda of hateful anti-Irish propaganda, you support the murder of babies as you also push the anti science climate lies.

        You are mocking bird media and shockingly obvious about it.

  6. eoin

    Jabs won’t stop infections or transmissions. They don’t claim to. And the tests are throwing up a lot of false positives. Hotel quarantines guarantee nothing except less travelers to and from this island. Why are they so desperate to jab as many people as possible, even though there’s ZERO point, if you are not in an at risk category?

  7. Junkface

    Another face palm to add to the growing collection from the Irish government. Honestly, common sense and rational thought is getting lost.

    1. Janet, chatty mammy

      they didn’t have it to start,
      I have felt more confident in a drunk Nepalese bus driver speeding around hairpin cliff bends past other corpses of crashed vehicles with his cargo of overpacked vomiting villagers and me.

      1. Junkface

        Haha! Jesus thats terrifying! I’ve experienced some mad Italian bus drivers going up to the Alps, but they were sober and super confident. Never sit in the overhang seats at the back, it would give you vertigo.

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