Ireland has dropped its mandatory hotel quarantine (MHQ) requirement
for travellers arriving in the country, with effect from 25 September.
Ireland’s minister for health, Stephen Donnelly, said the
quarantine scheme, which came into force on 26 March this year, has been scaled
down progressively over recent months as the risk designation of a large number
of states has been revoked.
Donnelly said: "The mandatory hotel quarantine system
was introduced as an exceptional public health measure at a time that our
country was contending with the very serious risk of importation of variants of
concern that had the potential to overwhelm our health service and, in
particular, to undermine Ireland’s Covid-19 vaccination programme.
"At the peak of the system’s operation some 60 states
were designated and the greatest number of persons in MHQ at one time reached
1,008 on 9 May 2021. The successful operation of mandatory hotel quarantine has
played a central role in protecting the population, maintaining control of the
disease and enabling the safe relaxation of restrictions on our economy and
society.”
Over the course of the scheme, 10,294 people entered
quarantine of which 593 subsequently tested positive for Covid.
Unvaccinated travellers arriving in Ireland from outside the
EU or EEA, which includes Great Britain, must still take a pre-travel PCR test,
fill out a passenger locator form and quarantine at home for 14 days.