Brother of Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney brands mandatory hotel quarantine ‘prison’

Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney’s older brother has branded mandatory hotel quarantining as “prison”.

Millionaire businessman Patrick Coveney launched a scathing attack on the quarantine system recommended by public health experts a week after his younger brother tried to prevent the Government from subjecting any more countries to the quarantining regime.

Writing on Twitter, the Greencore Group CEO said he found it “hard to overstate the incompetence and lack of foresight” regarding capacity issues experienced by the quarantine system aimed a preventing new Covid-19 variants entering the country.

“Ireland is now officially shut off from US & most of EU with little hope of being able to safely source the massive levels of hotel ‘prison capacity’ to sustain #MHQ policy,” he added.

The businessman’s comment come five days after his brother was forced into an embarrassing climbdown on his opposition to high-risk countries being added to the quarantine list.

It comes as airlines will be asked to not allow passengers on planes to Ireland if they do not have bookings for quarantine hotels.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly confirmed that bookings for designated hotels have been paused temporarily as the Government assesses whether it has the capacity to manage passengers arriving.

The online portal states there are no rooms available until Monday, April 19.

Passengers arriving from the 16 countries added to the mandatory quarantine list including France, Italy and the US will be required to quarantine from Thursday.

However, there will now be a pause on any bookings.

Mr Donnelly told RTÉ’s Six One News: “On a precautionary basis the department has paused the bookings to make sure we have the capacity.

“There is still a high level of walk-ins which shouldn’t be happening. Some of the airlines which are meant to not be allowing people on the planes are letting them on so I know Minister (for Transport Eamon) Ryan is engaging with the carriers on that.

"There is significant additional capacity coming in on Monday, we’re going up from about 650 rooms up to about 960. And then the following Monday again a lot more coming online, we will be above 1,300.”

The booking portal only went live for the additional countries on Monday afternoon, despite cabinet agreeing the move last Friday.

There has been a slight spike in bookings for quarantine hotels after the portal went live for the new countries added to the list.

The Department of Health confirmed there have been 477 rooms booked for April so far and 48 rooms for May. On Monday just 420 rooms were booked for April and 30 for May.

Mr Donnelly previously said the gap between the addition of the countries to the list on Friday and the beginning of quarantine on Thursday was designed to give passengers time to book into designated hotels.

However, a number of passengers brought forward travel plans to avoid spending nearly €2,000 to stay in a quarantine hotel for 12 nights.

A Department of Health spokesperson said operational matters between Tifco Hotel Group and the Department of Health, and engagement with airline carriers, was carried out across the weekend in preparation for this.

Online Editors